Making Sense of the Illogical
by keyguardian
Summary: G1 -My take on the development of Prowl and Jazz's relationship.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Hi. Well I've never really posted on Transformers before, though I am a big, BIG, fan of Prowl and Jazz and have been reading some terrific stories about them on this site for a long time. This story really developed out of wanting to see more of Prowl's point of view and to see their relationship develop slowly but meaningfully. Not that I don't like stories that aren't like that, but I just wanted to see how my take on their relationship would go. Sorry if this makes no sense or has horrible errors. Feel free to point them out. KG.

**Making Sense of the Illogical  
Chapt****er One**

Klick-One Earth Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

* * *

It was late in the cycle when Prowl irritably placed his data-padd onto the desk with a soft clack, finally able to admit to himself that he wasn't going to get any work done.

And the reason that he wasn't able to concentrate on his work? Jazz.

Prowl had been thinking about the saboteur all joor and had been tangling up his processor with unnecessary data and figures in his constant worry for the bot.

He had already run three hundred forty-six…three hundred forty-seven…three hundred forty-eight…

Prowl let out a growl through his vocal processor and forcibly shut down the line of thought and the scenarios that accompanied it.

Throwing himself away from the desk Prowl stood up, and looking once more at the pile of data- padds stacked three deep on his desktop (he hadn't been able to work at all since Jazz had been sent out on his mission) Prowl turned his head, resisted the urge to grab some of them to work on later in his quarters, and forced himself to leave his office.

It was illogical, the tactician told himself as he made his way to the mess-hall, to be so distracted by one mech.

Sure Jazz was kind, and friendly, and had a pleasing personality (the tactician could remember numerous times where Jazz had extended a helping hand component to his fellow Autobots and assisted them through tough times in their lives).

And Jazz had an excessively laid-back and spontaneous attitude on life for one in his position (secretly, and buried deep in his sub-processes, Prowl held a fervent wish that he could live as 'in the moment' as his fellow black and white did).

And yes, Prowl conceded to himself, Jazz wasn't an unattractive mech.

While you couldn't say that he was as attractive as Elita-One (now there was one beautiful femme. Optimus was a lucky mech to have her on his side), or that Jazz was as careful with his looks as say Sunstreaker (the frontliner had only been on the base for two orns and he had already been to the wash racks more times _Tracks_ had, and Tracks himself was one vain mech), Jazz did have something about him that attracted the tactician to his physical form.

And it wasn't a consolation to Prowl that Jazz was intelligent either.

That wasn't to say that Prowl preferred dumb mechs over smart ones (far from it, he actually liked it when mechs could keep up with his thoughts and see his reasoning) but he just had to hold on to the faint (and fading) hope that if Jazz couldn't meet him plan for plan, discussion for discussion, and argument for argument (like he had been doing quite regularly for vorns) that he wouldn't have him on his processor all the time. It was unlikely Prowl could now admit to himself (especially since he had been thinking about Jazz constantly since he had been gone) but he could hope.

So what, besides his personality, his attitude, his physical attributes, and his intellect was driving Prowl's thoughts into knots?

Yes Jazz had a terrific personality but one could say the same thing about Sideswipe (when he wasn't pulling pranks on the bot's stationed on the base, which he had already done numerous times in the two orns that he had been on the base, much to Prowl's constant annoyance).

And Jazz's attitude on life was rather catching, but didn't ten other bots exhibit the same attitude everyday as well? (especially the ones who liked to throw parties with illegally spiked high-grade?)

As for attractiveness…

Prowl would be the first to admit that he usually wasn't into looking at a mech's physical form beyond evaluating physical capableness. That he had noticed Jazz's at all was a mere coincidence of being right behind him as he had bent down to retrieve an object off of the floor which had thus consequently given Prowl an uninhibited view of his (nicely shaped) aft.

And smart.

Oh yes, Jazz was smart (one didn't get to be third-in-command and the head of special operations without a certain amount of processing power) but he was not as intelligent as bots like Wheeljack or Perceptor (though, he supposed one could argue that _nobody_ was as smart as the two scientists, even Cliffjumper if he wanted to try).

So what was it about Jazz that was making him take over Prowl's mental processes to the point of absolutely distracting the SIC?

What was it about Jazz that caused him to want to spend all his joors talking to the mech and admiring his form?

What was it about the saboteur that caused his spark to start fluttering every time he was near?

What quality about the mech took over his processor and made him think constantly (and irrationally) for his happiness and safety?

Why, oh why, Prowl thought despairingly as he walked into the noisy mess-room, did he like Jazz?!

* * *

***Edited for content, grammar and spelling on May 30, 2013*  
**


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

AN: Wow, I am just blown away as to how receptive people are to this story. Five reviews for the first chapter. All I can say is thank you to everyone who gave this story a chance and read it. An extra special thanks goes out to Ailiya, Hot Rod's Girl, PrancingTiger86, Jessie07, DitzyMusicLover for their reviews. I always mean to answer reviews and somehow never get around to it. So please don't take it personally if I didn't, I'm just terrible at answering them. It is very much appreciated. So thank you so very much for reviewing the story.

A couple of things that I need to address:  
The first one is that Altihex, the city mentioned in here is a name I got from Transformers WIKI and so, it obviously isn't mine.  
The second thing is the voices (and you'll know what I mean when you read the chapter). Don't ask me where they came from. I just happened to type it and decided to roll with it, so sorry if it seems like I butchered Prowl in the process. I just hope I didn't get him too out of character. Feel free to point out if I did.  
Also, another thing. The story is set pretty much in Generation One for anybody who's wondering and I did change the summary to reflect that.  
And lastly: Disclaimer (And I forgot this last time too didn't I ): Obviously I don't own transformers, It belongs to Hasbro, Marvel, and anybody else I may have forgotten.

And with all that out of the way (I think I got it all)…. Thank you all again and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

**Making Sense of the Illogical**

________________________________________________________________

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Jazz's return to the base an Orn later (Mission successfully completed) eased something in Prowl's spark that the SIC couldn't put a name too.

He was relieved that Jazz had finished his mission and returned safely and Prowl couldn't honestly say what he would have done if something _had_ happened to Jazz (Not that he hadn't been almost constantly contemplating that scenario and many others).

In fact, the plain truth was that the tactician had spent every single moment of the time that Jazz had been gone (Four Orns, six Joors, two Cycles and a Breem) thinking about the saboteur and every single possible thing that could happen to him (Three thousand fifty three hundred twenty eight if anyone bothered to ask).

So to see the black and white saboteur saunter proudly into the base and place his report calmly onto Prowl's desk made the Second-In-Command almost giddy with relief.

Prowl's first reaction to seeing Jazz standing there (after the giddy relief) was to inquire after any injuries he may have gotten (None, thank Primus). His second reaction (Followed quickly by his third) was to grab the saboteur by the shoulders and kiss him senseless (In that order). Prowl quickly squashed those reactions (And the voices that protested when he did) before he accidently acted on them and settled for thanking Jazz for his report instead.

Taking that as his dismissal Jazz turned around and exited the office, leaving Prowl free to once again admire his nice aft in the process.

-------------

The debriefing two cycles later proved to be a bigger challenge for Prowl then even he had been expecting. By simple virtue of rank he was seated on Optimus' right side and thus directly across from Jazz (Primus help him).

And though Prowl didn't like to admit it, the way that Jazz was talking (So smoothly and sensuously) and gesturing (wildly and emphatically) were sending prowl's (already weak) processes and inhibition into overdrive (As they usually did these days) and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the voices in his head that were telling him to just jump the third in command and kiss him already.

A ridiculous thought Prowl knew, (especially since he and Jazz were both in a room full of the Autobots top command element) but there it was and no amount of telling his processor to shut up (And having to ignore how irrational telling his own processor to shut up sounded) had driven the voices away. Prowl was almost seriously considering checking himself into the medical center to have Ratchet do a full neural scan just to make sure that it wasn't an actual glitch in his mainframe.

All his internal struggles would to wait though as Optimus had turned toward him for his tactical analysis of the situation.

"Prowl, any thoughts?" His leader asked.

(Oh he had a lot of thoughts at the moment, especially about a certain saboteur, but now was not the time or place to voice them).

Prowl mentally wrung out his mind and glanced down at his data pad full of (Half-hearted) notes before standing up and gesturing towards the middle of the table where a layout of Megatron's most recently destroyed base was suspended over the table in all its glorious three-dimensions.

"The destruction of Megatron's new base does little in the long run." Prowl began, making any number of mech's in the room slump their shoulders at the tactician's scathing review.

"Aww, come on Prowl. It can't be that bad." Someone piped up from the back of the room.

In answer to the quip Prowl turned toward the table and hit a button on the console which replaced Megatron's base with the autobots most up-to-date tactical information about the city-state Altihex.

"This," Prowl pointed to one of the red highlighted dots surrounding the blackened city-state, "is the base that Jazz destroyed. "And these," Prowl now pointed to the green ones, "are the new bases that have been developed while Jazz was on his mission. For every base that we destroy the Decepticon's build three more to take its place. In this instance the Decepticon's have a tactical advantage. Megatron's bases get closer to our defensive zone every Orn and there is little that has, or can be done to stop him."

Prowl sat back down in his abandoned chair and gazed with serious optics at the display on the table. "If Megatron manages to breach our military border then it is very likely that he will target Iacon." The words 'and destroy it' went unspoken but hung sharply in the air none-the-less.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room for a Breem before Jazz's voice chimed into the thick quiet.

"Man Prowl, do ya know how ta kill a victory meetin."

Grateful chuckles at the interruption met Jazz's cheek.

In response Jazz beamed around proudly at the assembled bot's.

Seeing this as his cue, Optimus cleared his vocalize.

"Alright mech's that will be all for today." The autobots leader turned to address Jazz.

"Jazz, good work on your mission." Optimus turned towards Prowl. "Prowl, I want you and Jazz to get together before the next meeting and work out some scenarios for tightening up the border around Iacon." Both black and white's nodded their heads at their leader in understanding.

"Everybody else is to make sure their units are doing their patrols and reporting any activity, however small or insignificant it may seem." Acquiescing nods came from every part of the room

Seeing that, Optimus spread his hands and dismissed the assembly, much to everyone's apparent relief.

As Prowl was getting up from his chair he found his gaze drawn inexplicably towards the recently returned saboteur. The voices were screaming at him, telling him to say something, anything, to the handsome mech, commanding him to keep the Third-In-Command in sight just a Breem longer.

"Jazz!" Prowl found himself screaming involuntarily over the noise.

Jazz turned from where he was conversing in the corner with two mechs and looked at the Second-In Command inquiringly.

"Yeah Prowl?"

Prowl could only gaze at Jazz for a minute as he waited for his mental processes to catch up to his vocalizer. Finally prowl managed to clear arrange his thoughts. Holding up his datapad Prowl gestured to the door.

"We will meet in my office in two Joors to discuss the tactical situation. " Prowl replied.

Jazz's visor flashed blue before he signaled his acceptance of the plan to the SIC and exited the room with his friends, leaving a disappointed (And frag-it he didn't understand why) tactician standing in his wake.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

AN: First off, a big thank you to anybody who read and reviewed the story, I'm really grateful for everyone taking the time to do it. And to Hot Rod's Girl, PrancingTiger86, cmdrtekk, blood shifter, pl2363, Jessie07, TammyCat, Yami-Yugi3; You guys are really awesome. Thank you all for the nice reviews. I appreciate it very much.

Disclaimer (because we have to do them): Transformers isn't owned by me, but by Hasbro, Takara and several other companies. And not Marvel, who I put down in my first disclaimer. Ahh the joy of doing things at three in the morning.

In any case, I hope this lives up to everyone's expectations. Enjoy!

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

The thought of seeing Jazz was the only thing that sustained Prowl over the next two Joors. He found himself literally counting the Breem's down in his head. And in the meantime he had to deal with the twins (He had thought that they were trouble when apart from each other in different units, but together they were even worse), sort out the reports from the other autobots bases that were under attack or had suddenly found themselves behind enemy lines, and continue making sure Optimus wasn't taking on too much of the work for himself (The minute Prowl had been made Second-In-Command he had made it his personal mission to make sure that the Prime wasn't doing too much work and wearing himself out, sometimes to the point that Prowl found himself with at least half of Optimus's work as well as his own at times).

So walking to his office on that second Joor, hands full of the half-dozen data pads that he had surreptitiously swiped from Optimus's desk, Prowl found that he was unexpectedly excited by the prospect that Jazz would be waiting outside of his office for him.

Of course no matter how many times he found himself checking his chronometer and mentally repeating to himself (Again and again) that it was just a routine meeting (With Jazz! the voices always chose to scream at this point in his reminder) there was never any actual way to prepare for that moment when he turned the corner and came face to face with the black and white Third-In-Command.

It seemed to Prowl as if time itself stopped for a Breem and that all he could do was stand there, ten feet from where Jazz was unconsciously (And elegantly) leaning against the doorframe waiting for Prowl to return to his office.

Prowl's grip on the datapads in his hand came dangerously close to the breaking point of the material that they were made of and his intakes literally stopped cycling air as he stood there, silently taking in the glorious sight of the Special Ops. mech.

Jazz meanwhile had turned around to see who it was that had approached the office and was now giving Prowl a look that was a cross between mystified and concerned.

"Ya alright there Prowl?" Jazz inquired, neatly stepping away from the wall and approaching the seemingly frozen tactician.

All at once the world seemed to snap back into focus and Prowl was suddenly aware that Jazz was only a few feet from him and had apparently asked him a question that he had completely missed thanks to being more interested in watching Jazz than listening to him.

"What Jazz?" Prowl choked out of his vocalizer, trying to find some orientation, some way to steady himself in this situation.

Jazz peered seriously into Prowl's face, concern evident in the frown of his lip components and the tilt of his head.

"I asked," Jazz said, finally looking away from the SIC (And depriving the tactician of the sight of Jazz's striking blue-visored optics), "If you were alright. Do you need me to get Ratchet?"

(No!) the voices that had taken up residence in Prowl's processor screamed. Prowl merely shook his head, wishing nothing more than that Jazz would back up a few centimeters so that his CPU would actually start processing again, and not stall the way that it seemed to have at the moment.

"That won't be necessary Jazz." Prowl verbally replied to Jazz's question. And gathering what was left of his senses, Prowl willed himself to move his legs and resumed his walk to his office door, thus causing him to pass beside Jazz (Close enough, Prowl was almost too acutely aware, to reach out and trail his fingers down Jazz's…).

"Ya sure you don't need ta see a medic?" Jazz asked after Prowl stopped for a second time and once again seemed to lose focus on his surroundings.

Mentally slapping himself Prowl shuttered his optics, processor already contemplating scenarios on how to get out of this meeting with any of his reputation, dignity and self-respect still intact. The conclusion (Nine hundred and twelve with an overall success rate of sixteen percent) wasn't something that Prowl wanted to dwell on.

Finally making his way to the door, Prowl hastily thumbed the controls and gestured wordlessly for Jazz to follow him inside.

Jazz hesitated for a click, still looking at the tactician worriedly.

"Well if you're sure…" Jazz trailed off, before shaking his head and entering the office.

-------------

The meeting was turning out to be slow torture for Prowl.

Logically he had known that anything involving Jazz would be taxing these days (Especially since the two mechs were locked in what amounted to a small room with only a very flimsy desk separating the, and no one else and nothing around for Prowl to concentrate on instead), but he was almost convinced that Jazz was part of some cruel conspiracy cooked up by the bots under his command to drive his thoughts out of control and lock up his processor for good.

But then again maybe he was just spending too much time listening to Red Alert.

"Hey Prowl!" Jazz snapped somewhere to his right.

Prowl turned his attention to the saboteur.

"Yes Jazz?" Prowl asked as calmly as he could manage (And frantically started shoving aside thoughts that he was certain weren't appropriate for an officer meeting with another officer of equal rank to be thinking).

Jazz just stood there and looked at Prowl, clearly frustrated with the tactician's lack of attention.

Seemingly coming to a decision, Jazz threw himself into the seat across from the SIC, threw his data pad carelessly onto the desk and looked critically at Prowl, causing the tactician's intakes to hitch slightly at the sheer intensity of the stare.

"Alright Prowl," Jazz said while kicking the chair back and crossing his legs on the desktop, "What's goin' on man?"

Prowl turned away from Jazz, unable for some reason to bring himself to lie to him while looking at him.

"Nothing's wrong Jazz." Prowl replied, concentrating heavily on the black screen in his hand.

Jazz got out of his chair so quickly that it toppled over with a clang and he pointed one black finger at the SIC accusingly.

"Don't give me that Prowl, I'va known you too long for you to pull that kinda stuff on me. I've never known you to be so inattentive. Now tell me what's wrong frag-it or I will drag you down to medical, by both doorwings if I have to." Jazz said firmly, before crossing his arms over his chest to emphasize his point (And, unconsciously displaying his rather well built body, though Prowl was reasonably certain that Jazz himself wasn't aware of this).

Prowl frowned up at Jazz contemplating.

How to tell Jazz that he couldn't get him off of his thoughts?

How to explain to the sub-commander that every second that he was apart from him was pure agony? That all he wanted to do at that very moment was give into the voices that were screaming in his processing unit and pin the gorgeous saboteur to his desk and never let him go?

How to make Jazz see that he was so infatuated with him that he probably would be content and happy with just being able to look at him for the rest of his existence?

"Well Prowl?" Jazz's voice broke him from his silent meditations.

Prowl turned his blank data pad over in his hands.

More importantly, how to get out of this conversation?

Prowl looked up into Jazz's face.

"Jazz…I ..."

Of course, that was precisely when the alarms around the base chose to go off.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

AN: Wow. *Looks at the story stats.* Nine reviews for chapter three, and two hundred and twelve hits. You guys rock on levels I can't even name.

Thanks to: PrancingTiger86, Hot Rod's Girl, Randomstrike, blood shifter, Yami-Yugi3, pl2363, TammyCat, Jessie07, cmdrtekk. You have all really motivated me to write, so this chapter is dedicated to you guys (and gals). Thank you.

To everyone else: I appreciate that you're taking the time to read the story, I sincerely hope you've enjoyed it so far.

And now: I hope this chapter doesn't seem too abrupt, but I found a stopping place and decided to post what I'd written. The next chapter (the second half of this) _should _be up before Friday, so you won't have to wait too long to find out what happens. I'm just crossing my fingers that this doesn't seem _too_ morbid.

In any case, see you all around the end of the week.

And now that that is all out of the way (was it too sappy and weird?)…Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. Simple enough no?

Please enjoy.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

The ensuing battle with the Decepticons was one that Prowl was sure would be exist in his memory files to the end of his days.

Despite the Autobot's best efforts Megatron had finally managed to breach Iacon's military border. The Decepticon war leader had managed to punch a two-mile wide hole in Iacon's walled defenses and had overrun most of the patrol teams before the alarms had even sounded.

Prowl grimaced down at his hands, thinking back to how many con's he had shot with his acid pellets and to how many of the Autobot's forces had been crushed underneath the ensuing Decepticon wave. The odds of an Autobot victory had been slim even before Megatron had managed to attack the city-state, but now…

That the Autobots had managed to successfully counter the attack and drive the Decepticon force back out of the city was nothing short of a Primus granted miracle in Prowl's opinion.

And now, Cycles later, here Prowl stood, waiting in the hall outside the repair bay, silently observing the controlled chaos that was going on around him. Mechs were running this way and that, triaging and doing hasty field repairs on those bots that were still on-line and maneuvering those that were in stasis onto make-shift berths.

Prowl could hear Ratchet in the background issuing tense orders to his medics, and dull bangs were echoing down to Prowl from the upper levels of the base as everyone moved about, trying to find some ways to make themselves useful.

Prowl turned his head and frowned at the closed doors to the medical bay. By all rights, as Second-In-Command, he shouldn't be here. He should be up in the command center with Optimus and Ironhide trying to control the chaos and keeping everyone productive and in-line.

Prowl wasn't usually one to complain about his injuries, and in fact often skipped going to the medical center altogether (Much to Ratchet's continuing displeasure) no matter how critical the injuries he received were, and the ones that he had incurred in this battle were relatively minor anyway.

And yet he couldn't seem to drag himself away from this place.

By all rights he knew he shouldn't be here, and yet he was. Because Jazz was one of the Bot's that had gone down in the battle.

Prowl knew, logically, that he should be up in the command center, helping Optimus keep control of the post battle commotion, and starting on the tactical reports, and making sure that the Bots under his command and those in his unit were resting properly and being looked after but his thoughts just kept looping back to Jazz. Jazz and the huge hole in his chest. Jazz and his (Beautiful, gorgeous) chassis splattered with energon and leaking fluids.

And so here Prowl was, waiting just inside the doors to corridor leading to the medical bay, looking down at his hands, and trying to ignore the conflicting thoughts inside of his processor. He was glad for once of being able to use his injuries as an excuse to hang around in the hallway without the fear that Ratchet would suddenly appear and unceremoniously push him out the doors while berating him for 'loitering.'

Push him out before he could find out if Jazz was going to be alright.

So wrapped up in his thoughts was he that it took Prowl a Breem to realize that one of the medics was speaking beside him.

He turned his head around just in time to see Hoist set his repair kit down on the ground.

"Were your Audio's damaged Prowl?" Hoist inquired of the commander in his thick accent as he stood up and leaned around curiously to inspect said area. "I must have called your name four times."

Prowl shook his head. "No Hoist, my audios aren't damaged."

"Something on your processor then?" The friendly bot asked while pulling out a scanner and turning it on.

"Jazz…" Prowl trailed off quietly.

Hoist winced softly at the saboteur's name.

"Yeah, he didn't look too good. Ratchet's in there working on him right now."

"How is he?" Prowl asked before he could stop himself.

Hoist looked at his scanner and frowned at the readings before diving into his kit and pulling out a tube of sealant.

"You have a number of open cuts and your energon levels are down to forty-nine percent, but other than that your fine." Hoist told the tactician. "I'm going to put sealant on the leaks to patch then up than I want you to go to the mess hall, get a cube of energon and hit your berth. Got it Prowl?"

Prowl nodded down at the green and orange bot but couldn't help but voice his question again.

"Yes Hoist, but about Jazz…"

Hoist finished his patchwork and looked up at the SIC sympathetically.

"Don't you worry Prowl." Hoist stood up and patted Prowl's arm comfortingly. "Jazz will be okay."

-------------

_Jazz will be okay. Jazz will be okay. Jazz will be okay. _Prowl repeated Hoist's words over and over in his CPU. He repeated it to himself when he got up the first Joor after the battle and finally reported to Optimus Prime. He repeated it to himself as he searched down bots and bothered them until they handed in their reports. He repeated it to himself as he organized the search and rescue and clean-up teams, and he repeated it to himself when, after everything he had to do in the Joor was done, he would inadvertently find himself making his way to the repair bay and just standing in the doorways of the medical center, unwilling to leave until he had a visual conformation that Jazz's condition hadn't deteriorated. Hoist's words became a mantra of continuation for Prowl; sometimes they were the only thing that got him through his Cycles, the only thing that kept him working from Breem to Breem.

_Jazz will be okay. He __**had**__ to be. _

And in the meantime life had to continue.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

AN: Well here's the second half of the chapter, as promised. To everyone who said that the last chapter wasn't too morbid. I'm glad. Maybe it was just a poor word choice on my part, or maybe my standards for morbid are just different than everybody else's. *Shrugs*

Thank you to any and everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. As some of you pointed out it probably was pretty obvious that one of them would end up in Ratchet's domain.

To PrancingTiger86, Yami-Yugi3, TammyCat, cmdrtekk, blood shifter, Maraluch, Jessie07, DitzyMusicLover, and Elita One: You guys are great for reviewing. I actually feel pretty terrible. I'm really bad at answering reviews, and I really meant to for chapter four. I was all set to do it but loss of internet and homework (I'm on Spring Break and I _still _have homework *sighs*) foiled my plans. Sorry if it seems like I'm being rude or ignoring you. I'm really not, I love all the good reviews I've been getting, everyone has really kept me wanting to write this story. Hopefully I'll get around to it for one chapter at least. I promise to try. In any case. Thanks so much. You're all totally awesome (I'll have to find another word to put here at some point).

And to everyone else, you have all really motivated me too, I like that people like the story enough to read it and give it a shot. Thanks.

(And with all the sappy stuff out of the way…)

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own transformers. Darn.

And now…Enjoy! (Or at least I hope you do…)

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

It was nearly an Orn before most of the clean-up of Iacon was done. It had required an extensive amount of manpower and doubled shifts for all able-bodied bots, but Prowl was (Secretly) proud to note that the repair efforts had gone smoothly. He would have to be sure to tell Optimus about the Autobot's exemplary behavior (Even the twins had been on their best manners. True that it wasn't much above what most mechs would consider barely civil and placid, but it was something anyway), especially in the face of such total and absolute destruction.

The final count of those mechs that had been off-lined was seventy-nine.

And for a race that had only ever numbered a few hundred thousand _before_ a civil war that had destroyed half of its population, that was a very significant figure indeed.

The Autobots had lost a full four teams in the Decepticon blitz attack and more than one unit was now missing a critical (And in some cases, non-replaceable) member.

The public ceremony for the fallen (Dutifully attended by all those well enough to go) had taken place only two Joors after the battle, with Optimus personally heading the proceedings. Despite that though, most of the mourning was being done in private, behind closed doors. And if some bots chose to report for duty a little overcharged this Orn, well the command element wasn't going to say anything. Even Red Alert had been known to look the other way when unit members had suspiciously (And sometimes illegally) gathered in the dead of the night to try and find some solace in their friends and to reminisce about their missing comrades.

But as time had shown more than once, life had to continue on. There were still shifts to cover and jobs to complete. And so everyone was slowly and cautiously starting to fall back into their chosen routines.

Dead comrades or not, battles of not, war or not, the world couldn't completely stop functioning just because of Decepticon wrought disasters.

Which was why Prowl was here, in his office, looking over casualties reports and trying to rearrange the duty shifts to accommodate the dramatic decrease in the Autobot's population. He wasn't making much progress though as his optics kept involuntarily drifting down to the third name on the list of those still in stasis in the medical center.

Jazz.

Prowl unconsciously tapped his fingers on his desktop, anxious beyond his ability to reason.

He had been officially banned from the med bay the Joor before by Ratchet, who had said he was tired of seeing the SIC in his doorway and that his almost constant presence was having an unsettling effect on those few mechs who were still confined to the repair bay.

And so, unable to go and see how Jazz was doing, Prowl had nothing but his work to distract himself from the almost overwhelming presence of the saboteur in his CPU (And the persistent voices in his processor). It was almost to the point where prowl was ready to say to the pit with whatever Ratchet had said. He could always pull rank if he had to.

Prowl set down his duty logs and sighed through his intakes. That would have to wait though, he noted morosely. He had a meeting to attend first.

-------------

The next Autobot debriefing was one of the most somber meetings that had occurred in a long time.

The atmosphere was downright gloomy. And thanks to all the things that had to be covered because of the Decepticons, it was also dragging on way too many Cycles for any of the assembled mechs collective patience to hold out much longer.

Prowl himself was feeling too tense to sit here anymore. Luckily the meeting was just about done.

Tuning back into the proceedings Prowl started paying attention just in time to hear Optimus thank Perceptor and Wheeljack for their analysis of the new chemical substance that Starscream's trine had dumped (Indiscriminately) onto whole clusters of the Autobot army. Prowl internally winced at the reminder. The substance in question had eaten right through most of the Autobot's outer plating and had driven Ratchet into (In most bots opinions) his most infamous fit to date. It had also attributed to at least half of the death's that had been incurred in the battle. Optimus himself had ordered the two scientists to analyze the substance and try to come up with a way to counter it-before it obliterated all of the Autobot's forces.

And despite the dangerous nature of the chemical, it wasn't even the most pressing thing on the agenda.

Prowl gathered his notes into his hand and stood up as the group turned their attention onto him.

He almost hated to bring this up (Especially after the Orn that everyone had already had to endure), but it had to be done.

Not knowing any other ways to say this, Prowl decided that direct would be best. "Our energon sources are almost gone." He started bluntly.

Cries of dismay immediately rang around the room, and more than one bot started to mutter to themselves disconsolately.

"Silence!" Optimus shouted out, waiting until even the most sullen of mechs had quieted.

Optimus turned to his Second-In-command, optics serious.

"You're sure Prowl?"

Prowl nodded his head. "Yes sir. That last battle tapped us dry. The Decepticons were successful in emptying out the last of Iacon's energon stores. I estimate that we will have to start rationing our energon in a little over ten Orns, and that Autobase itself will be completely depleted of fuel within the next Vorn and a half."

Prowl stood there after his grim pronouncement and watched as his leader's face went from dismayed to outright alarmed (Of course it was sometimes hard to tell with Optimus since he kept his battle mask on most of the time, but Prowl made it his business to know these things).

Optimus set his hands down on the table, gesturing for Prowl to retake his seat.

"Thank you for bringing that to our attention Prowl." Optimus thanked the tactician before turning his attention back to the rest of the assembled Autobots.

"I would like to thank everyone for being so accommodating and cooperative during this hard time. I know it has been a trying couple of Joors for most. You have all made me proud. Obviously we have some problems to fix, but I have no doubt that with everyone's help and cooperation we will get through them."

Optimus held all the gathered Autobots in his gaze for a Breem, trying to convey the seriousness of his words before standing up and officially ending the meeting, much to Prowl's (Internal) relief.

-------------

_Jazz will be okay. _

Hoist's words echoed back to Prowl as he hastily (And tried to not make it seem that way) made his way towards the repair bay, almost physically shoving bots out of his way in his rush.

He had just gotten word from Ratchet that Jazz had finally (Finally!) regained consciousness and he was anxious to see the Third-In-Command. He had (Literally) dropped everything he was working on (He would have to remember to pick up those tactical reports on his way back to his office) and started making his way down here the Click that Ratchet had commed him to tell him that Jazz had finally rejoined the land of the online and functioning. Well, not quite functioning, Prowl mused. Jazz would still have to endure Ratchet's company for another Orn or two while he recovered, but at the very least he was now awake.

So here Prowl was (Two Breems and three point four nine Clicks after Ratchet had informed of Jazz's awakening) heading down to the lower levels of the base, apprehensive and excited about seeing Jazz.

Prowl's spark was beating wildly in his spark chamber and the fuel in his lines was flowing twice as fast as should have. He might have been overheating too.

But none of that mattered. All that mattered right now was that Ratchet was letting him back into the medical bay.

To see Jazz.

Jazz. Beautiful, gorgeous (And did he mention beautiful?) Jazz.

The voices in his head were practically singing. He was going to see Jazz!

_Jazz __**was **__okay_.

-------------

In spite of the insistence of the voices in his head that he had to pin Jazz to his berth and hug him senseless the Breem he saw him, the tactician managed (Somehow and through a sheer will power he hadn't been aware that he possessed until now) to be walking at a calm, sedate pace when he strode through the doors leading to the medical center.

It was taking all of his self control not to rush right over to Jazz's berth, wrap the saboteur in his arms and promise to never let him go again.

He was managing not to. Somehow.

But he desperately wanted to.

Weaving through the berths, Prowl acknowledged those few bots that called out greetings, waved distractedly to Ratchet (who was lecturing Sideswipe in his office) and made his way to the other side of the ward where the head of Special Ops. was resting.

Prowl stepped inside the curtained off area where Jazz was resting, prepared to address Jazz and cater to his every need, but the sight that met his optics brought the SIC up short.

Jazz apparently already had company. More importantly, he was kissing Trailbreaker.

Jazz, Kissing Trailbreaker.

The room spun wildly for a Click and Prowl was finding it harder and harder to focus on the scene that was playing out in front of him.

Jazz.

Kissing.

Trailbreaker.

Prowl could feel an ache starting somewhere deep in his processor just as the world started becoming smaller and dimmer.

The two bots on the berth looked up when Prowl made a strangled noise through his vocalizer.

Jazz looked at Prowl, startled. He hurriedly extricated himself from Trailbreaker and lifted himself onto his elbows.

"Prowl…" Jazz began turning look to the commander, but it went unacknowledged as Prowl finally fell into the dark oblivion of the offline.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

AN: Well. **That** certainly got a response out of people. That was a record number of reviews for any chapter I've ever written. And your right, poor Prowl. Even I felt bad for him. Of course, I knew what was coming from the very beginning. Does that make me evil? In any case it was nice to finally be able to write it. I hope I did it justice.

Before anyone gets too ahead of themselves I will say 1.) This is the _development_ of Prowl and Jazz's relationship, and what relationship doesn't have its ups and downs (and unrequited love?), and 2.) Don't judge Jazz or Trailbreaker too harshly, they don't know what's going on in Prowl's processor. Not yet at any rate. As far as they are concerned it's perfectly all right for them to be kissing (And yes, they were actually kissing, Prowl wasn't wrong on that account).

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. 14 reviews. Wow, you guys are spoiling me. So thanks to: PrancingTiger86, pl2363, Hot Rod's Girl, Witch08, Elita One, blood shifter, Jessie07, Deepseadolphin11, optimus prime 007, DitzyMusicLover, Yami-Yugi3, Mirage Shinkiro, TammyCat, Ameri. You guys are terrific.

And thank you as well to everyone else who has read the story and added me to their favorites list. Your all really great.

This will most likely be the least chapter that I post this week (I go back to work tomorrow). I know I've posted three chapters (well technically two) and it's been fun writing them, but my time off ends, so back to real life I go. Anyway see you guys soon (next week or so I hope).

Disclaimer: Transformers doesn't belong to me.

And here's chapter six. Enjoy.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Prowl felt himself coming online slowly. Systems started booting up and his (Peculiarly sluggish) processor automatically initialized a systems check.

Unwilling (Or unable, he really wasn't sure) to move, Prowl just laid there and let his CPU get on with whatever it felt that it needed to do.

After a few Clicks his processor pinged at him, scan complete. The results weren't worrying. Systems running at ninety-eight percent, energon levels at eighty percent, and no viruses detected.

Which left only two questions in Prowl's mind. One: when had he laid down to go into recharge and Two: why couldn't he remember doing it?

Gathering his nerve, Prowl finally on-lined his optics and was promptly met with the sight of the medical bay's ceiling.

He shuttered his optics in surprise. Make that three questions. Why was he in the med bay?

"Oh good, your awake." Immediately filtered into his audios from somewhere above him.

Prowl sluggishly turned his head and saw Ratchet standing to his right, frowning down at some of the readings that he was getting from the scanner in his hand.

"Oh good I'm awake?" Prowl repeated Ratchet's words blurrily, finding it hard to concentrate on anything. His processor was responding fuzzily and he felt unusually subdued.

Somewhere, in the back of his processor, Prowl knew that he should probably be (_Extremely_) worried that his systems were operating so lethargically and that he couldn't seem to focus on anything, but somehow he just couldn't seem to bring himself to that point.

Ratchet looked up from his equipment and stared hard at Prowl for a moment.

"Do you remember what happened?" the surgeon finally asked.

Prowl frowned (Internally), he had been trying to figure that out as well.

"Prowl?" Ratchet prompted.

"I was walking to the mess hall when you contacted me and told me that Jazz…"

Prowl stopped talking so abruptly that his vocalizer crackled. Jazz!

Prowl leveraged himself up off the berth so quickly that he accidently pulled out the tubes that had been connected to his fuel lines (Sedatives Prowl vaguely registered) and caused a startled looking Ratchet to back up a couple of steps.

None of that mattered to Prowl though. All that mattered was that he make sure that Jazz was alright. Jazz **had** to be alright.

He had taken two fumbling, off balance steps before Ratchet caught him by the elbow. He tugged feebly trying to get loose, but the medic had too strong a grip.

Prowl turned dim blue optics onto the CMO. "Ratchet…"

"Oh no you don't Prowl, you get back into that berth right now, or I'll weld your aft to it!" And Ratchet promptly started pushing Prowl back onto the recharge pad.

Prowl struggled weakly, trying to get away. To see Jazz. All that mattered was that he see Jazz!

"Ratchet…Jazz…" Prowl managed to stammer out while still trying weakly to stand up, he had to make the medic understand that he needed to see Jazz!

Ratchet gave him an unreadable look before physically pinning him to the berth and grabbing the tubes that Prowl had managed to dislocate.

"Jazz is fine Prowl." Ratchet said from above the tactician while reconnecting the sedatives into Prowl's fuel lines.

The sedatives effect on him was immediate. Prowl's systems slowed down to half capacity and his recharge sequence initiated.

-------------

The next time Prowl on-lined he found he was thinking much more clearly. Unshuttering his optics the medical center (Dim prowl noted-it must be quite late) entered his sight. He could vaguely make out recharging shapes on those berths closest to him and he heard the sound of faint beeping from all the medical equipment in the background.

Prowl shook his head to clear it, trying to chase away the last of his drowsiness. The medical center? What was he doing here?

Then the last events of the last Joor crashed down on him.

Walking to the mess hall, Ratchet comming him to tell him that Jazz…

Jazz!

Prowl shuttered his optics and slid off of the berth while shutting down the current line of thought.

He didn't want to remember. It hurt to remember.

Unwittingly however, the scene that he had inadvertently witnessed continued to play out in his processor, refusing to terminate.

Jazz.

And Trailbreaker.

Kissing.

Prowl's spark gave a painful spasm everytime his memory files repeated themselves. His spark ached so much...

Coming to a decision Prowl clumsily made his way across the room, walked through the med bay doors and didn't (Couldn't, wouldn't!) look back.

-------------

"So here's where you are, you slagger."

Prowl looked up from where he was staring listlessly at his desk and unconsciously leaned back slightly as he came optic to optic with a very (Very) angry looking Ratchet.

"Ratchet…" Prowl began, remembering (And desperately trying not to remember) flashes from the Joor before and how he had made an (Utter) embarrassment of himself in front of the medical officer.

"You left before I could clear you for duty." Ratchet bit out, clearly incensed that Prowl hadn't stayed in the medical bay.

Prowl straightened up (Doorwings and all) and backed away several feet from the red and white bot.

"My apologies Ratchet." Prowl said, having difficulty keeping his voice level.

Ratchet waved the apology away and gestured Prowl into his chair so he that he could give him a final check-up.

And while ratchet was doing that Prowl had plenty of time to replay the scene between Jazz and Trailbreaker in his head (It _still_ hadn't stopped playing in his processor), and his spark continued to jar excruciatingly in its chamber whenever he did.

Ratchet finally stood up from where he had been kneeling and subspaced his scanner. "Well all your systems are operating within normal parameters, lucky you. We had to give you some pretty powerful sedatives for the bump you managed to get when you hit the floor." Prowl nodded automatically at the words, though he did really register them. All he was registering at the moment was seeing Jazz laid back on his berth with Trailbreaker leaning over him….pressing his lips down on Jazz's.

Prowl bit back a pain-filled scream. He honestly though his spark was breaking, so why wasn't Ratchet's scanner telling him so?

Oblivious to all of this, the medic looked curiously at the tactician. "If you don't mind my asking, just what caused your processor to lock up like that? You almost gave Jazz and Trailbreaker a spark attack when you collapsed. I've never seen Jazz so panicked before."

(Jazz had panicked over him?) Prowl twitched but otherwise didn't acknowledge the CMO.

The tactician could feel Ratchet's questioning gaze on him but couldn't seem to lift his head enough to respond.

Prowl wasn't sure how much time passed as he sat there wallowing in his misery, but the next time he regained focus Ratchet was gone and it was the start of the next shift for the Joor.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

AN: First off I'd like to extend a big thank you anyone and everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, or added this story to their alerts. You're all great for doing that.

To PrancingTiger86, xStarSaber, Elita One,Yami-Yugi3, blood shifter, pl2363, Jessie07, Ember Koramin. Thanks to all of for reviewing chapter six. I really appreciate it. You guys leave some great comments.

Disclaimer: Transformers isn't mine. How many more times do I have to say it?

And here's chapter Seven. For some reason this chapter was very hard to write. I just hope it comes off okay. Feel free to let me know if it doesn't.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Prowl was having a very busy couple of Orns. There wasn't a Joor that went by that he didn't find himself without some type of work to do lately.

Which, he reflected in the quiet sanctity of his room, wasn't such a bad thing.

His work was a vital part of his position and it helped him accomplish many things:

It helped him keep track of the Autobots and their various positions in all of the different sectors and city-states.

It was a useful (Though he wouldn't admit to it) way to annoy those bots that got under his plating without having to do any overt retaliation.

It kept him intellectually stimulated and on (Not so rare) nights helped him go into recharge (Especially Perceptor's reports-by Primus that scientist was long-winded).

And recently it also gave him a particularly useful excuse to get out of having to see Jazz.

Setting aside the report in his hand Prowl picked up another datapad from the stack next to him and laid back on his berth, trying (Valiantly) to concentrate on the (Poorly spelled) words, but instead finding his concentration split because he _still_ couldn't to get the image of Jazz and Trailbreaker out of his head.

No matter how many times he instructed his CPU to terminate the image, or how many times he ran a memory sweep and instructed his firewalls to block the scene, it _still_ continued to play out in his processor. It was annoying to say the least.

It was utterly inescapable to say the most. Though Prowl had been trying his best to get out of its clutches, and to that end had been finding other ways to occupy his processor.

Like loading himself down with personnel reports, datapad's full of tactical information and doing extra rounds to make sure that the bots on the base were getting their shifts done.

It wasn't so bad, Prowl thought as he added his signature to the bottom of the most recent discipline statement, to be so busy that he was missing regular recharge cycles and having Ratchet stalk him (And sending some of his medics if he was unable to come himself) until he consumed his allotted share of energon.

No, Prowl considered, it wasn't unpleasant to bury yourself in work and miss socializing with mechs (Though he didn't do that much in the first place), particularly if it stopped you from dwelling on things. Like Trailbreaker kissing Jazz.

Prowl once again ordered his CPU to terminate the memory sequence as it started to replay (_again!_).

Checking the datapad one last time for mistakes, Prowl put the signed list of infractions on top of the (Already sizeable) stack that was on the floor next to his berth and picked up the next one off the pile next to him to look over (Red Alert's latest Decepticon spy list Prowl saw with dismay).

No, Prowl told himself as he tried (And mostly failed) to lose himself in the report (And ignored his systems chiming at him, reminding him it was time to recharge); it wasn't so bad living life this way.

-------------

Avoiding Jazz had become almost as commonplace as him having work over the last couple of Orns as well, the black and White tactician thought moodily as he exited Prime's office.

It had taken all of his particular diplomacy skills to get out of the latest meeting that he had been scheduled to have with Jazz. It was the fifth one in the last eight Joors.

It seemed that he had now ducked Jazz (Having refused outright to see him after the scene in the med bay and, when Jazz wouldn't stop tracking him, coming up with ever more eventful excuses to escape him) so often that the Saboteur had gone to straight Optimus himself to request that the Autobot Commander set up a meeting with the two of them instead.

Jazz was apparently getting rather desperate if Prime's words were to be believed. And had led to Optimus asking Prowl point-blank just what Jazz had done that was making him keep clear of the Sub-Commander.

It was a problem, the Prime had pointed out needlessly to the SIC in the middle of a (Rather spectacular) dressing-down, because as the head of the Autobot's Tactical Department and a ranking officer he _had_ to be able to plan operations and strategies with Jazz since he was the head of the Special Ops. Department and Optimus' left hand mech. And that didn't work if he refused to be in the same area as the one he was supposed to be doing these things with.

Prowl scowled and resisted the (Overwhelming) urge to kick the wall. He was frustrated out of his processor at himself, Jazz, and the entire situation.

And of course he knew about all the problems that he was causing by avoiding Jazz. He didn't need Optimus to tell him what they were.

But did anybody consider the problems that Jazz caused _him_ by persistently seeking him out?

He was unable to get any work done because the Saboteur now insisted upon visiting him whenever he was in his office (Hence the large pile of reports now waiting for him in his quarters).

He hadn't been able to step foot into most of the common areas of the base lest one of Jazz's mechs (Blast them all to the pit for their loyalty) inform their commander that he was free and available (Which had led to Ratchet's most recent stalking campaign since he now refused to get energon when the mess room had any mechs in it-which, unfortunately, was pretty much all the time).

He was also now officially on report for dereliction of duty thanks to all the time that he had spent actively evading the Autobot Third-In-Command.

And to top it all off he seemed to have developed an extremely unreasonable (Though the voices were adamantly telling him otherwise) hatred of Trailbreaker as well.

Yes, Prowl thought as he stepped into the Command Center to start his shift (All the while ignoring the looks of curiosity that were thrown in his direction), he had problems.

Or actually just one problem, prowl thought contemptuously as he logged onto the system.

Just one utterly insurmountable, inescapable problem. Just one utterly insurmountable, inescapable problem that went by the name of Jazz.

**-ARC ONE****: ****END-**

And now we are officially at the end of roughly the first third of the story. Next up, we get to see all of this from Jazz's POV. Should be interesting. Thank you for reading. KG.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

AN: Wow, wow, wow…. *blinks.* You're all so awesome; I just can't thank you enough for all of your support for the story. It has really kept me inspired and motivated.

To everyone who reviewed: Sergeant Duck, Independent.C., pl2363, Yami-Yugi3, Elita One, Blood Shifter2, PrancingTiger86, TammyCat, Mirage Shinkiro, cmdrtekk, xStarSaber, DitzyMusicLover, Jessie07, marleypup14, Gimme-Chan, Trickster91, and Ameri. Thanks. I know I keep going on and on about how much I appreciate it that you all take the time to review, but I really am grateful. You guys are the best.

Also a big thanks to everyone who read, favorited, or added this story to their alerts. Thank you so much.

And now we start to see Jazz's side of the situation. I must have rewritten this chapter three different times before I got anywhere close to what I wanted, and I'm still not sure whether I'm happy with it or not. *Shrugs* We'll just see how it goes I guess. Feel free to let me know what you think.

I was actually going to wait a few days to post this but I have a seven page paper to write and will be unavoidable busy for the next few days, but all the better for everyone I suppose.

So without further ado. Chapter eight.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Jazz was normally a very outgoing mech. He loved being in the center of whatever happened to be going on at the moment. Jazz appreciated being around his fellow Autobots, sometimes to the extent that he himself instigated those parties that seemed to make Ratchet lose his, admittedly thin, temper.

That's not to say that he was irresponsible. Far from it actually, but he liked to occupy his processor with the fun things in life and that sometimes led to him putting off reports for a few cycles and confiscating the twin's latest batch of high-grade for mutual consumption by all Autobots present on the base.

Until lately that is, when Prowl had started to act as if he was Unicron himself.

This kind of situation had _never _happened to Jazz before. Usually mechs were inviting him over for some company (Unless they were a Decepticon, but that was a totally different situation again), not taking off every slagging time he made an appearance!

It was getting on Jazz's last nerve. He was a very emotionally centered mech by build and nature, calm and cool in all situations, even tempered by every mechs standards, but if Prowl continued to avoid him, he would have to resort to some very underhanded methods that he hadn't employed since the last time he had broken into Soundwave's quarters (A tricky feat in itself) to get the fragging mech to stay in one place.

As it was he was utilizing all of his various skills, tracking, spying, and computer hacking, just trying to keep dibs on the tactician.

If anyone was keeping a running total they would know that Jazz had tried and failed to meet up with the SIC six times already. Six!

Jazz threw his hands up into the air, thoroughly disgusted with the way that his latest meeting with Optimus had gone.

He had thought that going to Optimus would solve the problem. Surely, he had reasoned, Prowl wouldn't refuse a request from the Prime himself.

But to a surprised Jazz's dismay he had not only declined a meeting with him _again_, but he had also refused to answer Optimus' query about _why_ he was avoiding him.

Which meant that he was no closer to an answer than he had been two Cycles ago when he had stormed into his commander's office, ranted for ten Breem's about Prowl and loudly demanded that Optimus fix the situation.

Jazz liked to think that he was an intelligent mech. Or at least that he was a mech with enough processing power to get by reasonably well in life and be able to sort out all of the problems that it tended to throw at people, but Prowl had him, to put it bluntly, completely stumped.

Jazz began replaying the last couple Orns in his head, trying to find any possible reason for Prowl's recent behavior.

He had first become aware of Prowl having a problem during their interrupted strategy meeting, and then the battle itself had happened. He had woken up in the med-bay about an Orn after the battle, Trailbreaker had come to see how he was, Prowl had shown up (Interrupting one pit of a kissing session-Trailbreaker might not be a lot of things, but a good kisser he surely was) and then promptly fallen off-line (Scaring him and Trailbreaker into near fits at the absolute suddenness of it) and Jazz hadn't seen the tactician since (Though it wasn't for lack of trying).

What was puzzling Jazz the most however was _why_ Prowl would start avoiding him. As far as he was aware he and Prowl had been on very good terms (At least until recently). There was just no logical reason for Prowl to suddenly start evading him like he was.

Everybot knew that Prowl was all about logic, numbers, and self-control and what he was currently doing was about nothing like that at all.

It was also baffling how _swiftly_ this had all come on. It was like one Breem Prowl was fine and the next, notably after he returned from his mission to destroy Megatron's base, Prowl was a whole new bot. A whole new bot that took to avoiding Jazz with such firmness that some mechs were honestly considering the fact that Jazz might have done something extremely horrible to tick the tactician off.

But that couldn't be right. As far as Jazz was aware, he had done nothing.

Jazz stopped and looked at the wall, almost ready to laugh out of sheer nerves. He had just talked himself in circles.

Shaking his head, the saboteur resumed walking, still mulling over his Prowl problem and what he could do to figure out what the actual fragging problem was.

The real issue here, Jazz knew, was that he just didn't have enough information to form any sort of plan or conclusion.

And he hated it when he didn't have enough information. Lack of information got mechs killed more often than not.

So the only logical thing to do was get more information. Squaring his shoulders and coming to an abrupt decision, Jazz changed direction, walking decisively toward the control center, prepared to stay there for the whole of Prowl's shift if he had to if it got the bot to finally talk to him!

-------------

Jazz entered the room quietly, making sure to muffle his footsteps. Those few bots who looked his way quickly went back to their tasks after catching each other's optics and throwing subtle grins at each other.

Jazz acknowledged Blaster, who was on comms. and silently pleaded with him, asking him not to tell Prowl that he had entered the room. In response Blaster turned in his seat and went back to monitoring the Hub. Wordlessly thanking the bots in the room (And making a mental note to invite them to his next party) he walked quietly up to the back of Prowl's seat.

It was always fun to assess bots. Jazz got enjoyment out of trying to read a mechs body language. It was something that most mechs picked up after spending any significant amount of time in Special Ops. and it was turning out to be a particularly useful skill now because he could clearly see the tenseness in the position of Prowl's head and shoulders and how he set his doorwing's.

And he was downright determined that he would get to the bottom of what was causing Prowl to be so stressed and edgy.

Resolute, Jazz walked around until he was directly in Prowl's line of sight. And to his (Rapidly increasing) horror he could see Prowl's optics widen and could clearly hear the hitch in Prowl's intakes as the SIC drew in a shaky huff of air just at the mere sight of him.

It was significant though that that was all that happened. Prowl was a bot that prided himself on his self-control, but he now seemed to be _too_ much in control of himself. As if he was holding something back that would tear him apart if he let it.

And that couldn't be healthy Jazz decided.

So to that end he was bound and determined to figure out what was wrong with Prowl, even if he had to bug the SIC ceaselessly to do it.

Speaking of which…Jazz brought his concentration back to the tactician and was astonished because One: Prowl hadn't acknowledged him yet, at least not out loud, and Two: He has slipped out of his seat sometime in the last two Clicks and was quickly heading for the door. Again!

Oh no you don't, Jazz thought mutinously while narrowing his optics.

"Prowl!" Jazz called out, stopping the tactician in his tracks.

Prowl froze for a moment, and then slowly turned to face Jazz, doorwings straight up in the air, quivering.

"Yes Jazz, did you need something?" Prowl asked in a flat, even tone.

Interesting, some small part of Jazz's processor noted, it seemed that Prowl couldn't look him in the optics.

"Yes!" Jazz growled out loud, marching up to the SIC until he was faceplate to faceplate with him. "You!" And Jazz poked Prowl hard in the chestplate to emphasize his words.

And then to the astonishment of all those present, Prowl hastily backed up as if Jazz had just shot him through the spark and then turned around and actually **ran **to the entrance to the command center. It was as if he couldn't get away from Jazz fast enough.

Perplexed, Jazz could only stand there in the middle of the room, finger still outstretched as the doors swished closed behind the fleeing tactician.

The silence after Prowl left seemed to stretch on forever.

-------------

Leaving the command center, Jazz felt equal parts shock and discouragement.

He just couldn't figure it out. Why had Prowl run away from him? Why would the SIC _do_ that?

It didn't make any sense. Prowl _never_ ran away. It just wasn't in his nature. At least Jazz had thought it wasn't. Until Prowl had done it to him. Jazz just couldn't make heads or tails of Prowl lately. He just couldn't understand Prowl anymore.

Letting out an audible groan, Jazz shut down his current line of thought and entered the mess room, prepared to call his Prowl stalking quits for the Joor. Though it wasn't as if he knew where the tactician had gone anyway, and Red Alert certainly wasn't going to tell him (At least not after he had the last time the paranoid bot had caught him hacking into the security system).

Walking across the room and choosing not to pay attention to those bots that called out greetings, Jazz walked over to the energon dispenser and tried to ignore the naggingly persistent feeling that he was missing a very important piece of information.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

AN: First off, Thanks for all the reviews! I'm pleased that everybody (Hopefully) liked the way the chapter turned out. I was worried that Jazz was too out of character, but not alot of people seemed to think that. I'm glad.

Specifically to Elita One, pl2363, Mirage Shinkiro, Blood Shifter2, TammyCat, Deepseadolphin11, PrancingTiger86, Lola Hard, xStarSaber, Hot Rod's Girl, marleypup14, Independent.C., Jessie07, and DitzyMusicLover. As always you guys really inspire and motivate me. Thanks for all the ideas and support. You're the best.

And to everyone else who read the story. Thanks as well.

I know that I said this wouldn't be up for awhile, but it just wouldn't stop nagging at me till I typed it up, seven page paper or not. Ah well, apparently this is more interesting than homework. *Bangs head on desk*

In any case, I hope this will ease a little of the frustration that some of you feel at the lack of any real romantic action going on. Don't worry; we'll get there, slowly but surely.

And now, Chapter Nine.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Autobot meetings were, by their very nature, the bane of Jazz's existence. There was just something about sitting still for three Cycles and doing nothing but listening that made Jazz particularly twitchy.

He was a mech that like action and movement. He took words at face value and awarded bots for their behavior. So forcing him to voluntarily give up his preference for mobility for any length of time was slow torture of the worst kind.

Or at least it had been, until it presented the perfect opportunity to be in the same room with Prowl and _not _have him dash away as if he had the entirety of the Decepticon elite on his heels.

This was one of the few times that Prowl had been on the same level of the base as him in _Orns_. Every single time before this that he had tried to corner the tactician Prowl had managed to evade him, make an excuse and slip away from him, or just plain run away from him!

And Jazz was now sick and tired of it. What had started out as a simple chase after a seemingly troubled friend had turned into an all out mech-hunt of the highest proportions.

And the worst part was that he _still_ didn't know the reason!

Which was why he was more grateful than ever that he was Third-In-Command because it afforded him a seat right across from Optimus and Prowl, and the perfect vantage point to surreptitiously study the SIC.

Jazz began with the tactician's face. He began tracing Prowl's red colored chevron with his optics from the tips to where they intersected harmoniously with his forehead. Letting his sight linger for a moment, Jazz slowly allowed his optics to travel down further and caught just the barest hint of blue beneath Prowl's slightly jutting white helm.

Contemplating the fact that Prowl hadn't even glanced his way at all during the meeting, Jazz continued his observations, gaze falling even lower towards Prowl's face plate and his perpetually neutral expression.

Jazz's optics stopped on Prowl's faceplate features for a few long Breems. For some reason that Jazz couldn't explain, he had the feeling that Prowl wasn't very happy these Joors.

It wasn't anything to do with his outward appearance either. To the casual observer Prowl was just as stoic and unfeeling as usual, but to someone as skilled in observation as Jazz was, Prowl seemed to be continually miserable lately.

And Jazz was to seriously beginning to wonder if he didn't have something to do with it after all. As far he was _aware_ he hadn't done anything wrong, but none of this seemed to start until he had returned to the base after his last mission.

Maybe something had happened while he was gone? But no, he would definitely have heard about it if that was the case.

So it had to be something that had happened since Jazz had returned, but he had only (Officially) seen the tactician three times since then and all of those meetings had ended with Prowl offline, pulling a disappearing act on him, or battle.

Though come to think of it…just _why_ had Prowl fallen offline the first time he had seen him after the battle?

Jazz mentally frowned. It wasn't something that he had thought to ask before (Being too frantic for his friend) but maybe he should have.

Well it would be something to talk to Ratchet about anyway.

-------------

Jazz walked into the medical bay hoping against hope that Ratchet would be in a chatty mood. He knew that the medic was short-on both supplies and temper lately (Having been almost forcibly dragged to the med bay every other Joor for the last three Orns), but he really needed the information he was seeking, and so he was praying to Primus that Ratchet would talk to him instead of threaten him.

Approaching the muttering medic cautiously, Jazz called out a hesitant greeting.

"Heya doc bot." At his words, Ratchet immediately turned around from his inventory work and assessed his newest visitor (Though Jazz's processor automatically replaced it with victim).

"Jazz." Ratchet nodded his head and gestured for the saboteur to sit on the nearest empty berth.

Jazz willing complied and hopped up onto the berth just as Ratchet pulled out his scanner and directed the beam in his direction. Jazz shivered slightly as the scanner trailed over his energy field.

Finally the piece of medical equipment chirped at the medic and Ratchet frowned down at the displayed information before pressing a button and setting the device aside.

Visually scanning Jazz, Ratchet nodded, apparently satisfied with the readings.

"Arm." Ratchet said without preamble, and Jazz obediently held out his left arm (The one that Ratchet had had to completely replace) and started flexing the various digits of his hand together.

"Does it hurt at all?" Ratchet inquired while inspecting Jazz's newest outer plating.

Jazz shook his head.

Ratchet nodded and ticked off a box on his always present data pad.

"Alright," Ratchet said and next instructed Jazz to lift his knee joint to so he could see how the welds were holding together.

It was fifteen Breems before Ratchet was finally done going through his check-up procedure (The medic was nothing if not extremely thorough) and finished with Jazz.

Checking one last box in his medical records Ratchet set them aside and dipped his head at Jazz.

"Well it looks like you're ready to be cleared for full duty again." The medic announced. Jazz acknowledged Ratchet and slid of the berth.

"Thanks Ratch-man." Jazz said, but the medic waved it off, already engrossed in his files.

Jazz headed for the door, but hesitated at the entrance.

Turning back to look at the red and white bot, Jazz called out.

"Hey Ratch?" Ratchet looked up from his reading.

"Did you need something else Jazz?"

"Yeah…" Jazz trailed off.

"Well?" The medic prompted.

"Ah…it's…well…do you remember the last time Prowl came to visit me?"

"How can forget? Especially after all the fuss." The medic answered dryly.

Jazz put his hand on the back of his head, slightly embarrassed.

"Eh heh. Right. Anyway, do you know what caused Prowl to fall offline like that?"

Ratchet looked at Jazz for a moment before nodding.

"Yes. It was a combination of stressed systems, coupled with a conflict with his processor."

"What conflict?" Jazz tilted his head to the side.

"Apparently he saw something he didn't expect and it was too hard for his processor to handle."

"Saw something he didn't expect?" Jazz asked in a quiet tone, causing the medic to look at him in surprise.

"You really don't know?" Ratchet stared at the saboteur for a moment before shaking his head.

"Know what?" Jazz questioned. Ratchet frowned at the Sub-Commander for a moment before turning back to his data pad resolutely.

"No. You have to figure it out yourself." Ratchet said firmly

"But Ratch…" Jazz began in a pleading tone.

"Out!" Ratchet pointed to the door and Jazz (Unwilling to be at the mercy of the medic's ire) beat a hasty retreat.

-------------

Later on sitting in the mess hall Jazz was mulling over his meeting with Ratchet and silently cursed the bot for not telling him what was wrong with Prowl. It _would_ be like Ratchet to withhold information just to annoy him.

And he really was worried about Prowl. If, as the medic hinted, he really did have something to do with what was wrong with Prowl, then why weren't either of the two telling him? It wasn't like he wouldn't fix the situation if he could.

And he couldn't if he didn't even know what was wrong! Jazz thought fiercely while looking unseeingly at the table.

Jazz was interrupted from his continued contemplations about Prowl when someone made a vocalizer-clearing noise. Jazz looked up from his half consumed energon cube to see who was intruding on his thoughts.

Somehow he wasn't surprised to see Mirage (Who had just joined his team after transferring from one of the Autobot's resistance cells in Crystal City) standing there but he was surprised to see who had tagged along as Mirage's companion.

Acknowledging them the Saboteur wordlessly gestured for the two to sit down. Hound promptly threw himself into a chair and proceeded to get comfortable while Mirage elegantly seated himself, still retaining his hard-wired manners even after all the time he had spent with the army.

"So…" Hound began in his strong accent, looking at the saboteur appraisingly "Wanna talk about it?" the scout offered gently.

Jazz looked at the green and gray mech curiously, unable for the life of him to comprehend what Hound was referring to.

"Talk about what?" He asked after a moment's silence.

Hound shrugged and downed a third of his energon ration. "About whatever it is that's making you act so fragging…" Hound trailed off as Mirage put a placating hand on his arm which caused the scout to subside (Jazz mentally filed that fact away for later perusal).

Mirage shifted so that he was facing his commander. "What Hound means" Mirage began in his cultured accent. "Is that you have been a bit…out of sorts lately." Here Hound snorted and Mirage sent him a quick glare to silence him.

Jazz shuttered his optics, too stunned to speak. He hadn't been _that_ bad had he? Though now that he stopped to think about it, he _had _been a bit distracted lately.

"Prowl still getting to you?" Hound offered when Jazz didn't say anything. Mirage turned and frowned at his fellow, and Jazz just stared at Hound, clearly startled.

"How did ya…?" Jazz half questioned the modest bot.

Hound waved off the question. "Jazz the whole base knows that you've been chasing after Prowl."

Jazz frowned into his cube, considering that piece of information carefully. "Do they now…" he said (Chasing? A small part of his processor whispered).

"Don't take it personally Jazz." Mirage quipped from his seat, clearly amused at how uniformed his commander seemed to be. "It makes for some great entertainment!"

Hound promptly began choking on the energon he had just swallowed.

Ignoring his green companion the spy turned back to Jazz.

"I just want to know one thing though." Mirage faced his commander seriously. "Why Prowl?"

Jazz looked at the blue and white bot while picking up his own cube and taking a sip. "Why Prowl what?"

"Why do you like him?" The former towers bot asked as if it was the most natural thing in the world and this time it was Jazz that choked on his energon.

-------------

Did he like Prowl? Could that be it?

Jazz tried to wrap his mind around the concept as he walked back to his quarters.

He had known the black and white tactician since the time that they had both been recruited at the beginning of the war with Megatron.

At first he had thought that Sentinel Prime must have the patience of Primus himself to put up with the tight-afted tactician.

As he had gotten to know him though he had been able to see the many different sides that Prowl possessed and had come to appreciate the SIC as a friend and close confidant.

But like him, as in attracted to him? The thought hadn't even crossed his processor until Mirage had mentioned it to him.

But now that he stopped to consider it, maybe he _did_ harbor some feelings like that after all. '

It was a shock to say the least, though it probably shouldn't be.

And how to proceed with it? It wasn't like he could just walk up to the tactician and tell him that he thought that he might like him, and would Prowl please consent to going on a date with him so that Jazz could see whether he actually did have any feelings for Prowl that ran along those lines?

Or could he? Jazz stopped walking, turning that thought over in his processor before just as easily dismissing it. No of course he couldn't he thought as he resumed his trek down the hallway.

And another thing, even if he felt this way, who was to say that Prowl would like him back?

And what about Trailbreaker?

Jazz let out a breath of air and entered his quarters. He would have to consider this carefully.

-------------

**BONUS SCENE**

Hound finished clearing his intakes of energon and turned around to look with bright optics at the rapidly disappearing back of the Third-In-Command before turning back to the spy.

"You didn't tell him that Prowl likes him as well." The green and gray scout said, calling Mirage on his information omission.

Mirage shrugged delicately and took a measured sip of his low-grade. "Didn't I?" Mirage asked in a mischievous voice.

Hound considered the blue and white bot for a moment. "Alright Mirage, just what are you up to?"

The towers bot stood up from his seat prompting Hound to do the same.

"And what" Mirage said as he made his way to the trash receptacle "Makes you think I'm doing anything."

Hound snorted and stared incredulously at the spy. "Ah, come on Mirage, I know you better than that."

Mirage laughed. "So you do." Disposing of his cube Mirage turned back to Hound. "As I told Jazz before, this thing between them is very entertaining." He said bluntly.

Hound stared at the spy for a moment, stunned. Then he broke into uproarious laughter.

"So it is," he chuckled. "So it is."

Mirage just let the scout laugh for a moment before grabbing one of his hands and tugging him along towards the doors and out into the hall.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

AN: First off, a big thanks to pl2363, Blood Shifter2, Independent.C., Mirage Shinkiro, Hot Rod's Girl, cmdrtekk, TammyCat, xStarSaber, Randomstrike, Elita One, PrancingTiger86, Jessie07 for all of your your reviews, motivation, ideas and well wishes for my paper. You guys rock.

As well, another big thanks goes out to everyone else out there who took the time to read this story. You all rock too.

This chapter brought to you by Rihanna (Yes I like her music, don't judge).

Enjoy!

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Brooding wasn't something that Jazz did often. It was very unlike him, almost to the point that when he did it at all it freaked out more than one mech and femme. He was a fun-loving, party instigating Autobot, who, while responsible when he needed to be, preferred being the exact opposite, even when the occasion didn't call for it.

He just wasn't one to think over long on things. He operated best by feelings and instinct, with just a touch of creative planning and luck thrown into the mix for good measure.

In fact, some of his most successful missions had been ones where he had had to improvise spectacularly.

None of that was helping him now though.

Jazz let out a hiss of air through his intakes and rested his head against the cool metal of his desk.

He was supposed to be going over the latest intelligence reports that Ironhide had sent back to the base, but was constantly finding his attention dragged away from them because of Prowl.

He just couldn't believe that he had been that…unaware.

He had been thinking all Joor about what Mirage had said.

'Why do you like Prowl?' Mirage's question echoed in his processor once more.

"Why indeed?" Jazz asked aloud as he slammed his unread report down on the desk hard enough to crack the display panel.

It was an excellent question, and one that Jazz had racked his CPU all during his recharge period trying to find an answer to.

The problem was that there wasn't just one answer.

It was countless little things.

It was the late night debates over troop placements and security arrangements that Prowl constantly engaged him in.

It was the casual gossip that he and Prowl liked to exchange over warm cubes of energon after working on reports for ten Cycles straight.

It was the Vorns of support and friendship that the two had built up and maintained through numberless battles and unit transfers.

It was everything really, and yet it was nothing.

At least, nothing that he could describe.

Why did he like Prowl? The question had lodged itself into his processor and was almost constantly repeating itself.

It was a confusing question. Pit, it was a confusing answer!

And Jazz wasn't sure what to do about it.

This should have been an easy situation really.

He liked Prowl (Or at least all evidence was pointing in that direction), and normally he would have no problem acting on that knowledge.

But this wasn't a normal situation for several reasons:

One: It was _Prowl_ he liked. His close friend and immediate superior. And currently a bot that was avoiding him with a steadfastness that had managed to trip him up several times.

Two: He was still officially with Trailbreaker.

And three: He still didn't know _**why**_ Prowl was avoiding him, in spite of the fact that every other fragging bot on the base apparently did.

Suddenly (And before he could really get on a roll with his various mental renamings of certain Autobots) his chronometer beeped at him, startling him out of his thoughts. Checking the time, Jazz let out one more sigh before pushing himself away from his desk, lamenting the fact that the situation just didn't make any sense.

In fact it was so illogical it would probably cause Prowl'sprocessor to lock-up if the tactician ever happened to be unlucky enough to ever encounter this kind of plight.

-------------

Later on in the Joor found Jazz sitting next to Trailbreaker, leaning his head uncomfortably against the strategist's left shoulder joint as the two watched a holo-vid in Jazz's quarters.

If he was completely honest with himself he could admit that he would rather be anywhere on Cybertron (Decepticon bases excluded of course) at that moment than locked in his room with Trailbreaker.

Despite all of his misgivings and second thoughts Jazz had dutifully met Trailbreaker at the docking port. He _had_ promised Trailbreaker that he would spend some time with him when he returned to the base (Trailbreaker having been loaned out to Ultra Magnus' troops for a couple Orns).

Jazz was now seriously rethinking his decision to carry on with that arrangement though. He could have made excuses, gotten out of it, but his guilt about his thoughts about Prowl, and his even weightier thoughts about disappointing Trailbreaker, had pushed him to fulfill his obligations to the mech. And that included a little quiet time off shift while watching some downloaded movies on his personal holo-screen.

He wasn't really into it though; he was now feeling even guiltier than he had at the start of the Cycle if that was at all possible.

And Trailbreaker knew it too as the recently returned mech had been shooting him worried looks all night.

Unfortunately he was so wrapped up in contemplating the circumstances that he had found himself in that he didn't realize that Trailbreaker was shifting under him, and subsequently found himself fumbling slightly as Trailbreaker abruptly moving away from him, leaving a space where Jazz's head had previously been lying.

Throwing out a hand to steady himself against the floor, Jazz looked up at Trailbreaker with hazy optics.

Trailbreaker...? Jazz questioned softly as the black mech turned towards him with an intense blue-gaze made all the sharper by the dim lighting.

Then without a sound Trailbreaker leaned in suddenly, capturing Jazz's lips with his, gently caressing them for a moment before running his glossa over Jazz's lip components, urgently seeking permission to deepen the kiss.

Taken aback for a moment Jazz instinctually pulled away, putting out a hand to stop Trailbreaker from bowing back down for another kiss.

"Jazz?" Trailbreaker asked confusedly after straightening himself, obviously thrown by the saboteur's unexpected reaction.

Staring guardedly at the bewildered Trailbreaker, warning bells started to go off in Jazz's head, telling him that this was wrong, imploringly him to leave before this went any further.

Deciding to heed his finely honed instincts Jazz stood up swiftly, causing Trailbreaker to do the same.

Backing up towards the door ungracefully, Jazz shook his head at Trailbreaker causing him to freeze in place.

Again the mech looked at him, hurt written across his faceplate. "Jazz what…" He started asking, only to trail off at Jazz's expression.

Continuing to shake his head, Jazz finished backing up to the doors.

"Sorry Trailbreaker….I…I can't." He managed to say before reaching blindly behind him and hastily hitting the door controls, not even waiting for it to open all the way before taking his opportunity to flee from the room.

-------------

It was his own fault really. He shouldn't have met with Trailbreaker tonight.

He had known that it wouldn't end well from the moment Trailbreaker has stepped off of the ship, and should have heeded what his processor had been trying to tell him.

Sighing aloud he looked forlornly around the empty mess room before turning back to the table.

He hadn't thought it was possible to feel even more guilty than he had at the beginning of his date with Trailbreaker, but he did.

His emotions were running completely rampant right now, leaving him disoriented and out of sorts.

Luckily high-grade was proven to effectively kill all emotions, except those that made a bot extremely stupid and happy, ninety-eight percent of the time.

So it was a shame that he hadn't touched his yet. He could really use something to drown his sorrows in.

"You know high-grade is better when you drink it. Fascinating though the color composition of that particular batch is, it would probably better to consume it before Red Alert notices and decides to confiscate it."

Jazz looked up at Wheeljack, barely registering he fact that he hadn't been aware that the bot had entered the room.

"Care for some company?" The engineer inquired softly, and Jazz just shifted slightly in his seat before turning his visored optics back to the contents of his cube.

Taking that as an invite Wheeljack sat down, looking at Jazz with concerned optics.

"I saw Trailbreaker earlier." Wheeljack said after a few Breems of silence.

Jazz did look up then, gazing at the green and white mech before turning away again.

Wheeljack let the silence hang in the atmosphere for a moment before broaching the subject again.

"He said that you ran out on him." Wheeljack said, prodding one of the saboteur's arms with a finger.

Wheeljack's vocal indicators flashed red in annoyance as this failed to rouse the saboteur from his mood.

"Jazz…" Wheeljack said heavily before reaching over the table and grabbing Jazz's untouched drink, taking a sip of it himself.

"You could always get the twins to detain him you know." Wheeljack offered suddenly.

"What?" Jazz's head shot up.

Nodding at the Third-In-Command, Wheeljack looked at Jazz with a slightly mischievous gleam in his optics.

"I'm sure that the twins would be quite willing to round up Prowl for you and tie him to a chair so that he can't escape again." Wheeljack said, vocal indicators flashing blue for a moment in amusement.

At that Jazz finally cracked a small smile. "Only for the right price." Jazz quipped before chuckling slightly.

"True." The engineer bit out between laughs. "True."

Settling back into his chair Jazz let out a melancholy huff of air.

"The worst part," Jazz said fiddling with his recovered high-grade, "Is that nobody will tell me just what's wrong with 'im!"

Jazz peered down at the kaleidoscope of colors that he had churned up in his cube before abruptly turning toward the engineer.

Jazz looked at the science officer with a hopeful expression. "Can you tell me Jack? Do you know?"

Wheeljack gazed sorrowfully at his superior for a moment before shaking his head.

"You'll have to ask Prowl I'm afraid. It's not for me to say."

"Jack!" Jazz finally snapped at him, completely incensed at the run around that all of the bots on the base were giving him when it came to the tactician.

But Wheeljack had looked away from him and was intently examining the floor.

And that was enough for Jazz. His patience, thin enough after Orns of the entire base playing dodge with him, evaporated completely.

Coming to a decision he stood up from his seat with enough force that he knocked the chair back, causing the engineer to jump slightly as the noise of it hitting the floor echoed around the empty rec. room.

Turning his back to the engineer Jazz threw his cube of high-grade at the wall (Hearing it shatter into gratifying number of pieces) before walking (Stomping) over to the doors.

"Jazz! Trailbreaker…!" Wheeljack started calling out to him, and Jazz ignored it completely as the doors closed behind him with a very satisfying snap, cutting Wheeljack off mid-sentence.

-------------

He had had enough of this. His boundless, endless patience had finally run its course and had left nothing but a cold fury in its place.

Walking down the corridors of the base with heavy footsteps, gritting his dental plates together and growling at any mech he happened to run across, Jazz marched purposefully towards the Command Center, angrier than he could remember being before.

He normally didn't do anger. Usually situations that got him angry were resolved long before he got halfway to this point.

Bad things happened when he got this angry (Just ask any of the mechs in his unit).

But this had gone on long enough. He was going to get the answer out of Prowl if he had to lock the slagging tactician in a supply closet and point a gun at his spark chamber until Prowl finally told him what he wanted to know.

Jazz's anger carried him through three levels of the base and right up to the doors of the Command Center before his processor started to clear and rational thinking came back online.

The vivid mental image of twenty different Autobots pointing guns back at him before he got unceremoniously tossed aft first into the brig (Which would be what would happen if he pulled a stunt like that on Prowl) stopped Jazz mid stride and prevented him from entering the operations room.

Mentally reviewing his thoughts and actions over the last five Breems Jazz groaned.

Much as he'd like to, he couldn't just go in there and threaten Prowl until the SIC talked to him.

For one thing, it would mean the end of his freedom for a long, long time.

For another thing it was Prowl. And no matter how mad or frustrated he was with the tactician, threatening him was unacceptable (Under any circumstances).

Doing an about face, Jazz forced himself to walk the other way, back towards his quarters while his emotions settled themselves.

If he was going to get to the bottom of this, he had to do it right.

Which meant dealing with Trailbreaker, and then moving on to Prowl.

Because he _would_ get to the bottom of what was wrong with Prowl. Even if it meant bothering every mech stationed on the base, and stalking Prowl every click of every Joor until he finally had his answer.

And then he would get Prowl.

Jazz chuckled darkly. Yes, Prowl would most definitely be his.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Jazz walked briskly towards the lower levels of the base.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

AN: Wow. *blinks rapidly while looking at the screen* Over a hundred reviews. That's absolutely incredible. I never thought this story would be so popular. Thank you so much to everyone out there for all your support, encouragement and witty comments.

Specifically to PrancingTiger86, TammyCat, pl2363, xStarSaber, Hot Rod's Girl, Elita One, flamingmarsh, cmdrtekk, Blood Shifter2, Independent.C., Hiezen, Mirage Shinkiro, DitzyMusicLover, Gimme-Chan, tristan2007, Deepseadolphin11. Thank you as always for the wonderful reviews.

This chapter is dedicated to everyone who has ever taken the time to read, review, favorite, or add this story to their alerts. Thanks for all the continued motivation and support, ideas, etc. Thank you everybody for taking the time to read this.

To celebrate this milestone I thought I would do something, but what I asked myself? Then it hit me. So for all of you out there who enjoyed the bonus scene with Mirage and Hound, if you want to see anything like that again or just have ideas for the story or anything that you would like to see in general, feel free to leave your ideas in a review and I'll see if I can get them into the story somehow. If I do use your idea I'll credit it when I include it. Deal?

Now before I get too emotional here… Enjoy!

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Prowl was quickly becoming a major distraction for Jazz. The saboteur had spent most of the last two Joors thinking about the tactician and running different scenarios on how he could get Prowl to be his.

Had Prowl been any other bot it really wouldn't have been a problem. Had Prowl been any other bot he would have just sauntered quietly up to him, spun him around for a kiss and shift willing and bot permitting, dragged him back to his quarters and engaged in a quick interface session.

But he couldn't, because Prowl wasn't just any other bot.

He was prowl.

And that was a different situation entirely.

Jazz knew that Prowl wasn't very good at emotions and would need to be handled delicately. He would have to expend a considerable effort to get the SIC into his grasp.

And Jazz was more than willing to take the effort to do that.

Though Jazz knew that he was nowhere near as good as Prowl at formulating plans, he could put some together in a pinch, and in this case he was coming up with a plan for something he really liked to do. Seducing bots.

Or just one bot actually.

Just one stubborn bot by the name of Prowl.

The first step, of course, would be to nail down a Prowl's new routine. Through careful observation and (Less than subtle) questioning Jazz had managed to find out that Prowl had completely altered the way that he had done everything over the last couple of Orns.

It was confusing to Jazz on many levels that Prowl would do that. Prowl was a mech that liked order and routine and Jazz had never heard of or seen any force strong enough to break Prowl's determination to follow his to the letter.

Prowl just didn't do spontaneity. His processor almost literally couldn't handle the stress that unexpected events caused. Prowl liked the familiar and well-known patterns that he had developed. He followed the same routines at the same time every Cycle, Orn in and Orn out.

So to have Prowl break with his regular schedule completely was unheard of.

Of course, after having chased him over the last however many Joors Prowl had been avoiding him, Jazz supposed he shouldn't have been so surprised.

Which only brought up another problem. How to get Prowl to stop running away from him? The tactician had totally outwitted him so far, even going to the immense trouble of unpredictably rearranging the duty rosters so that he and Jazz were on opposite sides of the base and wouldn't run into each other.

In fact it had gotten so bad that Optimus had been forced to step in and had officially taken scheduling privileges away from Prowl (Much to everybot's relief. No mech wanted to a repeat performance of Cliffjumper's screams about the unfairness of it again).

Which removed one obstacle, but left dozens of others. Countless incidents had shown that sneaking up on Prowl wouldn't work. And asking Prowl outright to meet him hadn't led anywhere productive either. Despite all his thoughts he wasn't _quite_ desperate enough to take up Wheeljack's suggestion about the twins (Tempting though it was), and he didn't know of any other bots who would willingly involve themselves in cornering the tactician (At least not without a liberal amount of high-grade, and he currently didn't have any).

Red Alert wouldn't be any help because of the supposed security breaches that he had caused over the last two Orns (Though Jazz personally thought that Red Alert was being overly sensitive. So he had hacked into the Hub once or twice. It wasn't _that_ big a deal) which effectively ruled the security officer and all those bots in the security and communications departments out of the equation, along with all the scientists (As Perceptor was apparently so absorbed in his work that he actually hadn't been seen in almost three Joors-Hoist and Grapple had made more than one attempt to coax him out of his labs with little success).

And nobody in medical would be able to help him either. Even if Ratchet wanted to assist him (And that was a _**big **_if) Prowl had enough experience avoiding all the medbot's (And enough rank to get away with it) that he would just be wasting every mechs time even broaching the subject. And really what could they do in the end, sedate him?

No, everyone in medical was out as well. As were all the mechs that were under Prowl's direct chain of command in the tactical department. Even Jazz wasn't cruel enough to subject them to Prowl's (Rare, but brilliantly explosive when witnessed, ire).

Which left him where? Jazz frowned as he descended down the corridors at a fast clip.

His own mechs might have been willing to help him but unfortunately they were all out on assignment at the moment.

And asking Optimus would be inappropriate. As the Autobots Supreme Commander he had bigger things to worry about than two of his officer's problems.

Coming to a halt in the hallway Jazz resisted the urge to break a portion of the wall. He was quickly running out of mechs, and ideas.

But what could he do? He couldn't ask any of the mechs on base for help, he couldn't sneak up on Prowl and catch him, the same went for straight out asking the tactician for a meeting, and despite Jazz's determination (And Prime's recent rescinding of privileges) Prowl had effectively outmaneuvered him when it came to both of them being in the general vicinity of each other at the same time.

So how to get Prowl to stop avoiding him? Resuming his walk, Jazz was sure that that question would bug him all Joor.

-------------

And it really was bugging him, Jazz reflected intriguingly as he headed back to his office, a lot more subdued than he had been earlier in the Joor. Though his thoughts were only partially to blame for his odd mood. Truth be told he had just had to do something that he loathed with a passion.

Although Jazz had to admit that in the end breaking up with Trailbreaker was easier than he had thought that it was going to be.

Reviewing memory files, Jazz smiled slightly through the maelstrom of dim emotions that were raging in his spark. He and Trailbreaker had been good for each other really. Comforting during the hard times, companions on the battlefield, close friends when needed.

But in the end nothing more than that.

Theirs had been a casual relationship formed out of a mutual need for warmth and company and, apparently, just as easily broken.

Jazz would honestly miss the time he spent with the mech, but inside he knew that this had been the inevitable conclusion to their relationship (If you could even call it that) since the beginning.

Trailbreaker had obviously known it as well because when he had spoken to him earlier in the Joor all the defensive strategist had done was quirk his lips in sad understanding before quickly exiting the room.

It was always a little sad breaking up with someone, but Jazz hadn't found anyone that he had wanted to stay with in the long-term. Casual relationships were his thing. Even he was mech enough to admit that he was a bit of a social butterfly who never thought about relationships in the long term. He valued his freedom enough that he always wiggled his way out of them before the mechs he took up with started thinking along the lines of the more serious relationship aspects.

Which was now a big problem because, Prowl, even if he actually got the tactician to stay in one spot long enough to ask him out, would most likely **not** want a casual relationship. Prowl was like that. It was all or nothing with the SIC. Serious or not at all.

And in spite of all his false confidence and views about the tactician, Jazz wasn't sure if he had it in him to do that.

It wasn't, Jazz though fiercely as he retraced his earlier path through the hallways, that he had never contemplated the benefits of having a serious relationship. It was just the dual fact that none of the bots he had decided to hook up with had wanted one, or that he had wanted to commit himself solely to one bot.

And even if he had ever wanted to, who would really want to put up with him for that long?

Jazz enjoyed the first stages of a relationship for a reason. It was always the best time. Softly-spoken words, stolen glances, and multiple-interfaces without the need to get more emotionally attached.

Because once you got attached, then the unpleasantness began. Get too close and suddenly bots started to rub you the wrong way with their habits and the sheer matter of their constant presence, which led to fights and disagreements, which in turn led to anger and resentment and an eventual break-up anyway.

And that was something that he couldn't afford to have happen with Prowl for several reasons, not the least of which being that he and Prowl were Prime's second and third in command.

Meaning that if they got in a relationship that ended badly, it wouldn't just be them affected, but the entire base and, consequently the entire Autobot faction as well.

Realizing what he had just thought Jazz groaned. He wasn't even _in_ a relationship with Prowl. Yet anyway. And for all he knew he never would be (At least not if he couldn't figure out a way to keep the tactician in one spot long enough to finally figure out what was wrong with him!).

But he was sincerely thinking about it. It wasn't something that he would have considered on his own, but Mirage had a good way of making a mech think.

Admittedly, he _had_ been rather obsessed with Prowl lately (Though to his defense it had –started at least-as a combination of worry for a friend, combined with too much free time thanks to being stuck on light duty) and he was already good friends with Prowl as well (Or had been until the last four or so Orns). But could they be more than that? And more importantly, would Prowl even _want_ to?

He was now free to pursue the tactician since he had just broken up with Trailbreaker, but would Prowl even accept him? Would the tactician welcome that kind of attention from him?

Jazz let out a sigh through his intakes, feeling confused and overcome.

He didn't know how to handle this situation. It was a new one for him. He usually had no problem getting bots to consent to entering a relationship with him. In fact, most were willing and eager.

And forthright. Can't forget forthright. Most of his liaisons were very frank about their thoughts and feelings, letting him know exactly what they wanted.

But as of yet he had no idea if Prowl was willing or eager. And there was no way in the pit that Prowl was ever going to be forthright.

And so Jazz had just stepped into new and unfamiliar territory, one where all his previous experience, all of his previous encounters with mechs meant absolutely nothing.

Though he was always up for some new experiences. And entering a relationship, any relationship, with Prowl would _definitely_ count as a new experience.

But, Jazz thought morosely as he stepped into his office, all of this thoughts and worry were irrelevant anyway, because he **didn't **have a relationship with Prowl. Yet, he just had to keep reminding himself. Yet.

But he was bound and determined to change that.

-------------

Later sitting at his desk Jazz started to formulate his plan of attack, mentally going over his objectives in his processor.

One: He would have to get Prowl to stop avoiding him. Somehow.

Two: He would need to figure out what was wrong with Prowl in the meantime.

And three: He would need to get Prowl to like him, or at least open to the possibility of dating him.

Now Jazz didn't have Prowl's processor, and couldn't calculate probabilities like Smokescreen but he wasn't liking his chances.

It would be hard enough just achieving one of those objectives. But add all three together and his success rate was quickly being pushed up into the millions.

Jazz sighed and wondered if Smokescreen would be kind enough to give him some really good odds the next time he saw him.

Chuckling slightly at the thought that he and Prowl would probably going to end up as the subject of Smokescreen's next gambling phase, Jazz tried to refocus on the issues at hand.

He was very likely going to have to do a fair amount of surveillance on Prowl to figure out how to tackle his goals.

For one he would need to figure out Prowl's new recharge patterns as well as when he got his fuel. He would also need to convince Prime to arrange the duty roster so that prowl was stationed on duty at the same time and area that he was.

He would need to find out how in Unicorn's name it was that Prowl kept managing to avoid him and find a way to stop the tactician from doing so in the future.

Then he would also need to round up some volunteers to help him romance the SIC as well as acquire gifts to give to Prowl as well.

Jazz slapped a hand over his visored optics in exasperation. This was getting more and more complicated by the Breem.

So it was a good thing that he was up for the challenge.

Yes. Jazz thought determinedly, Prowl would find himself seduced if it was the last thing that he did on this Primus forsaken planet!

-------------

**-ARK TWO: END-**

And so we come to the end of arc two. It's been fun diving into Jazz's processor. I'm not sure I like how this chapter came out (I had to almost beat it into submission), but never the less goodbye we say to Jazz and hello again to Prowl. In any case I hope that everyone liked the chapter (Or at the very least that it made some sort of sense). KG.

* * *


	12. Chapter 12

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AN: Hah. Well it's been awhile hasn't it. *rubs back of head sheepishly* Sorry to take so long between posts, but school had to take priority. Speaking of, did everybody else get through the semester okay?

In any case, thank you to everyone who took the time to read and review the last chapter.

To PrancingTiger86, Elita One, Hot Rod's Girl, Blood Shifter2, Mirage Shinkiro, xStarSaber, TammyCat, Dejavu, DitzyMusicLover, Deepseadolphin11, Gimme-Chan, and Hiezen. Thank you for all the nice comment and reviews. As always you guy are the best motivation I have.

Specifically to Independent.C.- Thank you not only for the nudge to get this chapter typed up, but the inspiration for the Bonus scene as well. I hope this is close to what you wanted to see ^_^

Disclaimer: For the record, Transformers is not, and never has been mine. Darn.

This chapter brought to you by summer. It's finally here! Yay!

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

It was very late in the Joor when Prowl finally finished going over the last of the reports that had been sent from the various Autobot outposts that were scattered around Cybertron.

Signing his name to the bottom of the last report (A list of requisitions from the bases scattered around Iacon), Prowl put it down on the large stack of finished reports on the left side of his desk and scanned his desktop one last time for anything he had missed.

Spotting one last datapad on his desk, Prowl frowned, internally debating whether or not he should turn it on and examine the contents of the pad.

He knew that most of the bots on the base would laugh themselves into asphyxiation if they knew that he was cautious (Maybe overly so) of the little black pad.

The plain truth of the matter was that he had been receiving one datapad every Joor for the last six Orns. And no two pads had been the same.

From reports that had bots had forgotten to complete, to graphics featuring various scenes, to simple words of advice, these mystery pads had started showing up in his office without warning one Joor, and no matter how hard he had tried to find the culprit (Or culprits) who had been breaking into his office every Joor he had had no success at apprehending them.

And so he was left with the mystery of the daily datapads. He had already spent many Cycles trying to puzzle out who would leave them and the reasoning behind them.

Though, technically, the datapads themselves weren't the problem. In fact if he was totally honest he would have to claim that they were extremely helpful to him. They always contained some useful information that he could use.

No, the datapads weren't the problem. It was the mech (Or mechs) leaving them. The datapads themselves were so innocuous that it really shouldn't have been much of an issue for the bot (Or bots) who was leaving them to drop them by on his office hours.

As it was the mysterious mech (Or mechs he reminded himself for the fourth time) was specifically waiting until he left his office (His _triple _security locked office) to leave the datapad.

At first he had thought the pads that were being left on his desk were a prank (In fact the twins faces had immediately flitted through his processor) but all he had found on the first pad had been Grapple's overdue maintenance report. The second that had appeared on his desk had contained a chapter of one of the harder to find dissertations on organic planets, the third had contained an audio recording of one of his favorite songs.

It had become almost routine for him to enter his office after his duty shift and find the little black pad waiting for him. Always in the center of his desk, always accompanied by a cube of fresh energon.

He really didn't want to encourage this kind of behavior in any of the mechs on the base but it was a gesture that he could vaguely appreciate, even if it puzzled him exceedingly.

Shutting down his optics, Prowl let his CPU run through a few probabilities about the contents of the newest pad.

If asked he would have to admit that he had developed a liking for trying to guess what the pads would contain every Joor. He liked to keep his processor occupied and this had developed into a somewhat entertaining game, all worries about who was leaving them aside.

Deciding that he had spent enough time putting it off, Prowl on-lined his optics and activated the screen.

He almost laughed out loud at the picture that appeared. There in the small display were a majority of the mini-bots (All very much intoxicated) wrestling with one another.

Shaking his head at their drunken antics Prowl shut down the data stream and stood up from his desk.

If he ever actually managed to catch the culprit (Or culprits) that was leaving him these he would have to thank them profusely.

-------------

It wasn't until he was sitting inside the mess hall taking in his assigned ration for the day (Despite many attempts they _still_ hadn't found any new sources of energon and had started rationing their energon one Orn ago) that Prowl finally took the time to ponder the other problem that was occupying his processor these Joors.

Jazz.

Just thinking about the saboteur made his spark start pounding erratically.

Amazingly he had somehow managed to completely avoid the Third-In-Command over the last couple Orns. In fact it was almost as if Jazz was now purposely avoiding _him_ now instead.

At first Prowl had tried to convince himself that this was not the case. That Jazz would still somehow randomly appear in his work center, or outside of his quarters to see him. That Jazz would still try to seek him out.

But despite many hopeful moments where he had anxiously anticipated the appearance of the sub-commander he always found himself sorely disappointed when it was always (Always!) one of the other bots on the base instead.

Prowl sighed into his cube. How had this happened? He knew that he been avoiding Jazz, that he was in fact the one that had caused the situation that he had found himself in, but that still didn't help to alleviate the total helplessness that he felt over the whole sorry state of affairs.

The plain truth of the matter was that despite his behavior over the past couple of Orns, he missed Jazz terribly.

He missed interacting with him, he missed doing duty shifts with him, he missed talking to him, and he missed being Jazz's friend. He missed Jazz!

Somewhere in his processor he knew that the voices were taunting him incessantly for letting the situation get this bad.

And really he would have tried to resolve the situation long before now if he could have. It was just that he didn't know how to approach it. He had now avoided Jazz to such an extent that he would feel extremely awkward just going up to the saboteur and acting like the last ten Orns hadn't happened.

And even worse was the thought that if he _did_ do that, he would still have to explain to Jazz why he had started avoiding him in the first place.

And how embarrassing would that make the situation, if he had to confess that seeing Jazz kissing Trailbreaker had just about ripped his spark in two?

Really, how could he approach Jazz when he didn't even know how he felt towards the Third-In-Command anymore, let alone what Jazz felt about him?

Though at least when Jazz had been chasing him he had had some opportunity to gauge how the saboteur might be feeling towards him. It had (Secretly) given him some comfort to see the saboteur, even if he had also been trying to avoid him.

Which just brought up another point. Could Jazz have started to ignore him because he had somehow managed to hurt his feelings because he was avoiding him?

Prowl was mech enough to admit that that was probably it exactly.

Letting out a slight groan Prowl slumped in his chair. He hadn't meant to hurt Jazz. He had just needed some time to think about how he felt and to come up with an appropriate response. He would be the first person to admit that emotions and how to handle them were not one of things he was very well versed in.

He had always had Jazz by his side to handle this kind of situation before.

And having no Jazz to turn to in this situation was just making it all that much harder to figure out.

There was a noticeable Jazz shaped hole in his life, and no matter how he tried to fill it with work and other distractions it refused to close up.

There was also now no denying even to himself that he missed Jazz, much as he had tried to over the last Joors.

Prowl's spark clenched again, painfully.

Shifting in his seat Prowl pondered his self-made problem and the multiple questions that that line of thinking brought up.

How did he go about fixing the situation? What could he do to apologize to Jazz and restore the status quo? Was it too late to salvage their friendship? Did Jazz even want to fix the situation now?

The real problem was that he'd never really ever found himself in this kind of situation before and just didn't know how to handle it. Which meant that he desperately needed some outside help.

But who could he talk to? He wouldn't be comfortable talking to any of the mechs on the base…

Mechs…

Suddenly his processor presented him with an option that he hadn't considered before.

Hastily gulping down the last half of his cube Prowl practically pushed himself away from the table and exited the room, practically jogging the rest of the way to his quarters.

-------------

**BONUS SCENE 2**

Optimus Prime on-lined his optics slowly as his personal vid-screen chirped at him incessantly, alerting him to the fact that he had an incoming call. Checking his chronometer, the Autobot Commander moaned at the fact that it had only been two cycles since he had lain down for some recharge.

Getting up from his recharge pad, Optimus made his way across the darkened room and sat down at his desk.

"Hello?" he greeted fuzzily when he turned on the communications device, staring at the screen without really seeing it

"Optimus!" Came the enthusiastic reply from the other end in a voice that he was very familiar with.

Shaking his head to clear his CPU Optimus looked properly at the screen and drank in the image that he was looking at.

There on the screen was the (Rather beautiful) sight of a smiling femme commander.

"Elita?" Optimus yawned through his intakes. "Is something wrong? Why are you calling? Do you need assistance? Can we…"

"Optimus!" Elita bit out again trying to hide her chuckles. "Calm down, everything's fine on our end."

"Then why the call?" Optimus asked, expressing his confusion.

"And do I need a reason to call?" The pink femme said innocently, putting a stern pout on her face.

"No." Optimus was quick to reassure her. "Not at all. It's just…"

Optimus ended his explanation as the femme gave into hysterical laughter.

Waiting out the femme Optimus sat at his desk as Elita collected herself.

After a few Clicks of silence Optimus prompted his pink counterpart again.

"Elita?" He asked. "The call?"

Taking in a breath of air the femme commander looked at her spark-mate with curiosity shimmering in her optics.

"The reason for my call is that I just got another call from your base." The femme explained. "From Prowl."

"From Prowl?" Shock inscribed itself onto Optimus' faceplate.

"Yes."

"What did he want?" Optimus asked, intrigued.

"He wanted some advice." Elita bit back a giggle and rocked back on her heels.

"Dare I ask what the advice was for?" Optimus asked dryly.

Shaking her head the pink femme stared at her mech for a moment before a mischievous look entered her optics.

"Relationship advice." She said.

"Relationship…." Optimus broke off, clearly startled.

The femme nodded her head decisively, letting the anticipation build for a moment before speaking again.

"Yes. Apparently Prowl likes Jazz." The femme commander said, emphasizing the last two words.

The look on Optimus' face after she revealed that would be a source of amusement for Elita-One for many Vorns afterwards.

-------------

And there you have it. I had to drag this reluctantly out of my brain. Apparently I've gotten so used to writing Jazz's POV that to switch back to Prowl was more than my imagination could take. Whatever. I hope this made some sort of sense at least. Once again, thanks to Independent.C. For the inspiration for the bonus scene, it was fun to write. Catch you all later (Though not too much later…) KG.

* * *


	13. Chapter 13

* * *

AN: First off, a huge thanks you to everyone who has taken the time to read this story. There are literally no more words to express my gratitude (Really. I think I've used up every cliché by now).

As well, another big thanks goes to everyone who has added this story to their favorites and alerts. Ditto for the words of gratitude.

To Blood Shifter2, Elita One, pl2363, Mirage Shinkiro, PrancingTiger86, Independent.C., Gimme-Chan, flamingmarsh, Hiezen, TammyCat, OrianPrime92, Deepseadolphin11: I'm grateful for all the feedback you guys give me. Thanks for all your support and comments.

Independent.C-I'm so glad you liked the bonus scene.

Now, I have a few things to say; 1. I have finally nailed down the last of the plot for this story and estimate that there will be about twenty chapters total if my plot works out like I have planned, so there should be about seven more chapters (give or take). So to answer Elita One's question: No it's not over but it is close. 2. I am also playing around with the idea of making a sequel to this story. It's tentative, but we'll see how it goes.

I apologize for any mistakes that you may see, I didn't have much time to edit this (I had to swipe computer time to type this up), feel free to point out any mistakes.

Anyway, enjoy.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Stepping out of his quarters the Joor after his talk with Elita, Prowl had to admit that he felt better that he had in Orns.

His talk with the femme commander, while embarrassing, had left him with several pieces of very good advice on what to do about his situation with Jazz, even if it _had_ taken her several Breems to stop suggesting that he just walk up to Jazz, kiss him senseless and frag the consequences.

But after a good couple Cycles of rest and with his processor clearer than it had been in a long time (Even the ever present voices were unusually quiet) Prowl was ready to end this runaround that he had Jazz had become engaged in.

Banishing the last traces of doubt to the back of his processor Prowl walked towards the command center with determined strides, Elita's practical advice replaying in his memory banks.

"Just pull Jazz aside and tell him how you feel." The femme's voice rang in his CPU. "Even if he doesn't feel the same way as you do at least you will have given him the option of considering you as a potential partner and…" The pink femme stopped talking and looked at him compassionately through the screen for a Click. "And it will go a long way towards explaining your recent behavior towards him."

Nodding silently to himself, Prowl headed down the corridor, determined to talk to Jazz and tell him how he felt.

-------------

Determined as he was though Prowl had to admit that putting words into actions was harder than even he was mech enough to admit. It was all well and good to think and talk about doing something, but something completely different to actually do it.

And he was starting to think that he was something of a coward, as he had walked out of his quarters, almost immediately lost his newfound resolve and instead of seeking Jazz out as he had wanted to do, had instead bunkered himself down in his office and had stayed here for Cycles passed when his shift for the Joor was supposed to start.

The biggest problem (Besides his extreme and continuing embarrassment over the situation) was that he _still_ didn't know definitively how he felt for Jazz. This situation had confused his emotional processors to the point that while he thought that he _might_ like (Really like-maybe love) the saboteur he just wasn't as sure or confident about it anymore. The second biggest problem was that he wasn't sure how Jazz would respond to him _if _he told him that he might like him.

Prowl would be the first one to admit that he feared (Greatly feared) Jazz's reaction to him, especially after all the time that he had spent avoiding the Third-In-Command.

Prowl's doorwing's slumped and he let out a growl through his vocal processor. This situation was impossible! For all of Elita's good sensible advice, he was just too much of a coward to put her (Very simple) plan into action.

In this case continuing on as he had been and maintaining the status quo might be the wisest course of action.

Catching that thought Prowl dropped his head into his hands. No! No! No!

If there was one thing that he was convinced of it was that something of this situation needed to change. And he would just have to gather the courage to be the one to change it.

It was ironic. He could face the best of Megatron's soldiers without flinching, but he was absolutely helpless in a self-made situation that involved Jazz.

Dropping his hands to bang against his desktop, Prowl narrowed his optics. Enough was enough. This situation had to be resolved one way or another. It couldn't be allowed to continue.

If Jazz were in this situation Prowl knew that he would have taken steps to correct it long before now. The saboteur would never have allowed the situation to continue on to such a degree.

So what, Prowl thought, would Jazz do?

Thinking back on all the times that Prowl had seen Jazz assume command and sort out problems Prowl's processor sorted out the order in which Jazz usually handled things. Observation, followed by a quiet intervention from the background, and if that didn't work then the special ops. mech would step in publicly to resolve whatever problems had come up.

Pushing back from his desk Prowl stood up. Alright then, if Jazz could call upon his training to help him through things, then there was no reason that he couldn't either.

Which meant that he would need to formulate a plan. Which meant that he needed more information.

And the best way to get the information was…

Prowl activated his comms. as he exited his office. "Red Alert?..."

-------------

The security director stared up at Prowl with a horrified expression on his faceplate. "You want me to what?!" Red Alert managed to squeak out in appalled tones.

Prowl stood in front of the bank of monitors calmly (On the outside) and nodded. "Yes."

Red Alert just continued gazing at Prowl before viciously shaking his head, his audio horns glittering slight blue with electricity.

"There's no way that I can trade two Orns worth of shifts with you Prowl. The security systems are sensitive and coded specifically to my use. There's…there's just no way that… It would be a major breach of protocol!"

Prowl narrowed his gaze at the red and white bot, and Red Alert actually pushed back in his chair until he hit the edge of the computer console.

"Red Alert" Prowl began in a deceptively calm voice while his doorwing's twitched agitatedly behind him. "As second in command of the Autobot forces and your immediate superior I am hereby ordering you to trade shifts with me until further notice."

Red Alert's optics widened and he stood up from his chair with enough force to send it spinning towards the door. "That's an abuse of your rank!" The red bot protested tensely.

"Never the less." Prowl said in a tone of finality while straightening up to his full height. "It is done."

Red Alert just stared in horror at Prowl and opened his mouth, thought better of what he was going to say and fidgeted on the spot for a moment before running out the doors.

"Prime!" Red Alert's scream echoed down the hallways.

-------------

Prowl had to give Optimus credit. It hadn't taken the Prime a long time to order him up to his office after Red Alert had run hysterically out of the security center.

Prowl could barely stop himself from shifting guiltily from side to side as the Autobot commander regarded the two officers that stood before him with a serious gaze.

Finally after what seemed liked Vorns of silence (Though his chronometer told him that it had only been a few Breems) Optimus' gaze came to rest on him.

"Red Alert claims that you have been abusing your authority Prowl. He says that you have ordered him to trade Two Orns worth of shifts in the security center with you.

Prowl held his gaze to Optimus' face as he nodded.

"I did." Prowl replied calmly.

Optimus regarded the tactician over the top of his desk for a Click before turning towards Red Alert.

"Red Alert…." Optimus began apologetically.

Red Alert's optics widened in anticipation of what Optimus was going to say.

"Sir, you can't be serious…"

Optimus nodded. "Prowl's order stands."

"But…but…" Red Alert whimpered and Prowl could just imagine the many type of paranoid scenarios the security director was already creating in his processor.

"Dismissed." Optimus said cutting off Red Alert while pressing a call button on the underside of his desk and that summoned Inferno (Optimus must have called sometime during the meeting Prowl realized) who burst through the doors and started dragging his spark-mate out the office.

Prowl turned and started to follow the two but paused as Optimus called his name.

"Prowl." Prowl turned his head to towards the commander.

"Yes?"

Optimus looked him straight in the Optics. "Don't hurt him."

Prowl's intakes hitched and the voices in his head started chattering panicked at the words that Optimus had just uttered but he shoved all thoughts and noise aside and managed to nod seriously.

"I don't intend to." He said after a moment of silence, hoping that it conveyed the fact that he was deadly serious.

Optimus studied him critically for a moment before nodding and gesturing to his office doors. Taking the hint, Prowl exited the room.

-------------

I also apologize if it seems like I butchered Red Alert. It was purely unintentional. In any case I hope you all liked the chapter. KG. ^_^

* * *


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

AN: First off thank you all for the support and encouragement from everyone who has read ad reviewed this story. I never thought that it would get as big a response as it has.

Especially to: PrancingTiger86, Independent.C., pl2363, TammyCat, Mirage Shinkiro, flamingmarsh, Svecounia, marleypup14, Ameri, Hot Rod's Girl, OrianPrime92, Gimme-Chan, wolves-fire77, Deepseadolphin11, EasterOfFlesh. Thanks as always for the continued support, your all super.

Now, I apologize first for the delay for this chapter (work has been keeping me busy) and second for the fact that there will be another big delay because I leave for a two week vacation (Yes!) in about seven hours, and while I will have my laptop with me, I don't know when I'll have time to sit down and type again. So we'll see what happens.

In any case I hope this chapter tides everyone over, and I'll definitely be back after June 12, so until then (or maybe sooner) enjoy!

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Jazz crouched low, right in the small blind spot of the two cameras that overlooked the hallway and cursed Red Alert profusely in his head.

The security director _would_ get himself dismissed from the security center right when he was about to implement the second phase of his plans for Prowl

Speaking of Prowl… Jazz counted down the Clicks in his processor

Three …

Two…

One…

And dived for the right side of the hallway just as the cameras swiveled with miniscule, almost invisible movements on their perches.

Allowing two Breems to pass as he stooped low, Jazz calculated his moment and then continued down the hallway on bended knees, using Vorns of practice to stay out of sight of the cameras that surveyed the base level that housed Prowl's office.

Dropping flat to the ground, Jazz slid the three or so feet that were left between him and the touch pad that granted access to the SIC's office.

Waiting another Click and straining his senses to their fullest, Jazz pulled a sack of small clear balls room from his subspace, took aim at the pad and grinned triumphantly when the door to Prowl's office swished open with a quiet hiss of air.

Hoping to Primus that Prowl wasn't monitoring this particular hallway, Jazz made a quick lunge for the open door and let out a sigh of relief when he managed to slip under the door sensors.

Standing up quickly inside the left corner right inside the door, Jazz examined his objective with a critical eye.

Prowl's desk was directly in the center of the room, directly in the line of sight of three of the camera's that were stationed in the hallway.

Switching his sight over to the light spectrum, Jazz tracked the camera's faint ion trails to pinpoint exactly where they were focused.

Skirting the wall to find the right position, Jazz made a quick run for the desk and barely managed to stay out of the range of the cameras as he dived under it.

Hidden under the desk Jazz almost let out a triumphant yell at having successfully completed his first task.

Turning his attention towards his second task, Jazz once again reached into subspace and grabbed his latest acquired data-pads along with a fresh cube of energon and carefully snaked his hand along the desktop, hastily arranging the both items in the center of the desktop.

Letting his head go level with the desk for just a moment, Jazz nodded, satisfied with the placement of both items. Slipping below the desk again, Jazz let fifteen Clicks pass before lunging back towards the corner near the door. Crouching down, Jazz exited the room, making sure to hit the door controls on his way back to his office.

-------------

Two cycles after he had broken into Prowl's office found Jazz strolling leisurely up the corridor towards the conference rooms for the Autobots regularly scheduled (Too regularly for his tastes) all personnel meeting and running his processor through differing scenarios on how to implement phase two of his plans to make Prowl his.

Jazz would be the first to admit that he was actually having fun chasing Prowl. He had never before had a potential love interest that he had had to work this hard to get before, and the change and challenge that it provided was as nerve wracking as it was exhilarating.

Though it was also starting to drag a little bit as well. With as much fun as he was having a part of him (A very large part) was aching for it to be over with so that he could be free to sweep Prowl into his arms, run his fingers over the tactician's body and…

Jazz blinked his optics and ordered his feet to halt just as he came upon a cluster of mechs who were all lounging around in the hallway.

Spotting Sideswipe, Jazz weaved his way through the mass of bodies until he was beside the Red Warrior. Once in that position the reason for the group's hesitation was painfully obvious.

Jazz let out a low appreciative noise as he looked into the conference room where Red Alert and Inferno were actually _screaming in unison_ at both Optimus Prime and Prowl

Jazz's spark fluttered a bit as he gazed at the SIC. Prowl's doorwing's were straight up on his back, held almost indignantly as he took the brunt of the verbal assault the Red Alert ad Inferno were hurling at him, and the look of steady determination in his optics as he replied calmly to both enraged mechs.

Letting his gaze roam a little, Jazz's gaze once again alighted upon Prowl's doorwing's.

Doorwing's by their very nature were funny things. Extremely sensitive to any external stimuli, they were said to make those few bots that were unlucky enough to have them very fun to interface with. And Prowl's, with their obvious versatility, were rather nice all around.

Studying the appendages, from their inverted white tips to the black that started halfway across the square limb, Jazz wondered what he could do to Prowl once he had full access to them.

Immersing himself in various scenarios, Jazz grinned slightly as his processor presented him with some rather interesting ideas.

"azz…Jazz!" Startled, Jazz turned back around to gaze confusedly back at Sideswipe, who had cupped his hands around his mouthplate and had actually yelled at the top of his vocalizer into Jazz's audio receptor.

Wincing at the amplified sound, Jazz rocked back on his heels.

"Yes Sideswipe?" Jazz questioned once he deemed himself a safe distance from the warrior.

Looking a bit put out, Sideswipe gestured at the open door to the meeting room.

"Don't you think that you should go in there and help them out?"

Jazz refocused his optics into the room, assessing the situation. In the Breem that he had let his imagination wander, the situation had deteriorated to the point that Red Alert was now being physically restrained by both Optimus and Inferno as he continued to hurl insults (Very creative insults at that) at Prowl.

Heaving a sigh through his intakes Jazz looked back down the hallway where the entirety of Prime's hand-picked unit were gathered.

Side stepping until he was sure that he was completely visible, Jazz cleared his vocalizer to get everybot's attention. Once he was sure that he had at least ninety percent of them focused on him he took control of the situation, effectively dismissing them for two cycles.

Once the hallway was clear Jazz turned back to the open door to the conference room, debating whether he should intervene or not.

Taking a moment to look back in at the four bots, Jazz cursed his luck again at having been chosen as an officer (It had never been something that he had wanted, in fact Optimus had blackmailed him into accepting the position) and straightened his shoulder joints before entering the room.

Careful to make sure that he couldn't look at Prowl (His restraint would never hold if he did), Jazz stepped around the conference table and walked towards the corner where Red Alert was repeatedly hitting Optimus with a data-pad.

Clearing his vocalize to get the attention of the quartet, Jazz walked succinctly over the security director and snatched the data-pad out of his hands before turning towards Optimus and smiling.

"Anything I can help with here?" Jazz asked his commander while keeping out of Red Alert's reach.

"Ah Jazz." The Prime said, shooting him an unreadable look.

Jazz had turned towards Infeno to hand him the data-pad that he had confiscated when a soft voice calling his name stopped him in his tracks.

"Jazz" Whispered a voice from the side, and unconsciously Jazz looked around to find the source of the noise.

Jazz's system shuttered to a halt as he met Prowl's optics. All thoughts vanished from his processor and it seemed as if the planet itself held its breath for just that Click. Jazz was caught up in looking at Prowl, observing every joint, running his gaze over Prowl's perfectly maintained plating, committing to memory every seam and servo that made up Prowl's body.

The moment ended as abruptly as it had started. One Click Jazz was running his gaze appreciatively down Prowl's chassis, the next he was being rammed into by Red Alert, who had managed to break out of Inferno and Optimus' grasp and had dived for his data-pad, knocking into Jazz and sending him sideways right into Prowl, which in turn had sent both mechs tumbling to the floor.

Caught off guard, Jazz shuttered his optics, contemplating his newfound position. He was sprawled on top of Prowl, straddling the tactician's waist, one hand on the floor, the other pressing against the SIC's chest plates, right above his spark chamber.

Jazz's systems reacted immediately to the closeness to Prowl that he had unexpectedly attained. Heating up at the mere thought of the proximity between him and Prowl.

This close to Prowl it would be a simple thing to reach out and run his fingers over Prowl's plating. A simple thing to lean in ever so slightly and capture the Tacticians' lips with his…

Prowl made a noise deep in his vocalizer that startled Jazz out of his daydream. And to Jazz's absolute horror he found that his hand had trailed slowly down and had come to rest on the Tactician's hips and that he was only centimeters above Prowl's face, in a position to…

Leveraging himself up, Jazz clambered swiftly to his feet brushing off the hand that Red Alert had stuck out to help and shoving the data-pad back into the security director's arms Jazz turned on his heels and ran out the door, leaving three amused and one very shocked mech behind him.

-------------

**Bonus Scene 3**

Inferno bent down and offered the seemingly stunned Prowl his hand.

Frowning at the unresponsive tactician, Inferno cleared his vocalizer.

"Prowl, you gettin' up offa the floor?"

"Hmm. What?" Prowl blinked his optics, then noticing the outstretched hand, he shook his head and allowed the fire chief to pull him to his feet.

Noticing Optimus eying the door, he looked in the same direction, right where Jazz had just disappeared.

_Jazz…_

Prowl turned around and looked back to where Red Alert was talking quietly to his bondmate feeling startled beyond his capacity to handle.

Looking once more towards the door, Prowl shook his head to clear it, pulled out a chair and collapsed unceremoniously into it only one thing occupying his thoughts.

_Jazz… _

-------------

Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, see everyone in a week or two. KG.

* * *


	15. Chapter 15

**

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**

**AN:**Hello All! I greet you from somewhere inside the Ohio state (Won't tell you exactly where), I just got here today on the second leg of my trip.

Anyway, as always I extend my eternal gratitude to PrancingTiger86, pl2363, Independent.C., Elita One, Mirage Shinkiro, flamingmarsh, marleypup14, wolves-fire77, Maraluch, Gimme-Chan, Apocrypha Blessing, buddhabread, Deepseadolphin11, kougaluv, and Hot Rod's Girl for all the reviews and feedback. You all rock for sticking around and reading.

And another big thanks goes out to everyone else for reading, favoriting, and adding this story to their alerts. You guys are all great too. ^_^

Now, I've had this chapter sitting on my hard drive for a couple of days and have done my best to edit it, but there still might be some mistakes, my apologies. That and I also apologize if Prowl seems more OOC than usual, though I imagine that at least some people will rejoice at the end of the chapter.

In closing, I hope you enjoy the chapter (Only five more to go!)

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

_______________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Prowl frowned slightly, going over his to-do list in his head. As the Autobot's Second in Command, the head of the tactical department, and recently self-appointed replacement security chief he had a thousand and one things to do. And while, realistically, he knew that it would almost take a miracle to actually accomplish all that he had planned for a Joor, he always gave it his best shot.

Now however (And in spite of how insistent every pressing thing seemed to be nagging at him) he could only concentrate on one thing.

Jazz. And that look on his face when he realized that he was on top of Prowl.

_Jazz._ He hadn't head of foot of the saboteur in recent Joors, and to have him land on him like that…

And that look…

That look on the saboteur's face had preoccupied Prowl for the last three Cycles.

Because if Prowl didn't know better he could have sworn that…that Jazz had…had…

Prowl's energon flowed to his face as he thought about it. Jazz had pressed his weight further down on him, trailed one hand slowly down his chassis and had almost…

Prowl would almost swear that Jazz had been about to kiss him.

But that was absolutely impossible, there was no way that that could be true, no way that what Prowl had been imagining all this times, all these feelings that he had been struggling over could be reciprocated by the Saboteur. Unless…

Unless…could there be a chance that…that Jazz…_** liked**_him?

Prowl's processor blanked, and his systems started to go into overdrive as the ever persistent voices in his head kicked into a cacophony of denials and agreements, all of them split equally down the middle.

Impossible. It was an absolutely impossible thought.

But that look on his face… For a Click there, Jazz had looked completely…

Those attractive hands of his had slid down his body, seeming to just avoid his plating seams and the exposed wires underneath. Those beautifully crafted lips had stopped just short of meeting his.

Prowl groaned at where his thoughts were heading, feeling his spark beat erratically.

Jazz was about the only thing that he reacted that intensely to these days and now he had a whole new set of visual files about the Third-In-Command to review.

It had been bliss. All the things that Prowl had been imagining over the last Orns had played out in real life, but on the _floor _of all places…

That contact with Jazz had felt good, had felt _right_. If Red Alert, Inferno and Optimus hadn't been there…

Prowl finished off his cube, contemplating the situation as it stood.

He liked Jazz (Even if he was too afraid to tell him), Jazz, well he might (Might?) like him? and…

Prowl heaved himself to his feet.

And where did that leave him?

More importantly, what did he do about it?

Prowl walked out of the door, as confused as he had ever been.

If Jazz liked him…

But it was impossible, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

-------------

Prowl stood outside of the entrance to the Special Ops. armory, hesitant about breaking boundaries and crossing henceforth invisible lines, but knowing that he needed help and that they could give it to him.

But he would need to do something soon. He had been given some very funny looks, but he only supposed that was natural, seeing as he had been standing outside this door the last five Breems, trying to gather his wits, and finalize his plans about what he was about to do.

His resistance broke as the third mech in the last two Breems gave him a sideways glance as they walked by on their way to their final destinations, so straightening his limbs and pasting a calm look on his face, Prowl stepped forward and rang the door chime.

Counting down the Clicks in his head (Thirty-Two) distracted him just enough that he didn't have time to rethink his hasty decision.

It was just that he needed answers, and if anyone was going to have then it was…

Wheeljack was the one who opened the door, much to Prowl's internal relief.

The engineer stood in the doorway, blocking the view inside and tilted his head to the side at the sight of Prowl in the hallway.

"Prowl?" The engineer questioned, curiosity lacing his voice.

Prowl heaved air through his intakes, uttering words that he had never thought he would say "Wheeljack, I need your help."

Wheeljack's eyes widened and his vocal indicators flashed a light red.

-------------

"So what you're saying," Wheeljack asked after having Prowl repeat the story twice (Just to be sure that he had heard it right) "is that you really like Jazz, but aren't sure that he likes you back?"

Prowl looked down at his lap, stuttering out the next few sentences in a way that he had never done before, looking as lost as a youngling and not at all like the SIC that he was supposed to be. "I…I think he might, but Wheeljack what if he…"

And the engineer couldn't help it anymore, he broke into uproarious laughter.

"Oh Prowl." Wheeljack drew unsteady breaths into his air vents, trying to control his mirth. "You…" and gave up the struggle and started outright chuckling again.

After a few Beems Wheeljack finally managed to get himself under control and turned his head so that he was looking Prowl directly in the optics.

"Prowl I can honestly say that Jazz is so madly in love with you that even _he_ doesn't know how deeply he feels for you yet."

Prowl drew in a ragged breath of air, optics lightening to a shade of blue that bordered on white.

Seeing that Wheeljack reached over, putting a steadying hand on the tactician's arm.

"Prowl…" but it was too late.

Wheeljack was sure (Despite multiple engineering degrees, and his own common sense telling him that it was impossible) that he could almost _hear_ the moment that Prowl's logic circuits overheated and started shutting his systems down from the strain that the SIC had been under lately.

As Prowl slumped unconscious in his chair and started sliding gently to the floor Wheeljack let out a sigh and opened a comm. line to Ratchet. The medic was _not _going to be happy with him.

-------------

**Bonus Scene 4**

"You what!" Rachet yelled as he looked at Wheeljack and Wheeljack barely had time to duck as one of Ratchet's favorite wrenches came flying at him at close to mach speed.

"Ratchet!" Wheeljack complained looking at the new ding in the wall of the armory.

But the medic completely ignored him as he bent down to examine the unconscious SIC.

With a creak of metal Ratchet stood back up and wordlessly gestured to the medics who had accompanied him to carry Prowl up to the medical wing.

Turning around Ratchet looked over his shoulder. "Wheeljack since this is your doing." And the medic completely ignored the protestations that immediately came out of the engineer's vocalizer, "You get to call Optimus _and_ Jazz and tell them that Prowl is out of commission."

Wheeljack's optics widened and Ratchet but was equally as unreceptive to the engineer's pleas for him not to leave him with that cruel and unusual punishment.

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	16. Chapter 16

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AN: *Stretches arms out and yawns lazily* The absolute best thing about vacations (Besides seeing new things of course) has to be all the free time to get things done that have been put off because of work (Like finishing stories).

As always a big, big thanks goes out to all the people who have been kind enough to read the story. I've probably said this more than once, but again I never thought this would be as popular as it has turned out to be.

To marleypup14, Yami-Yugi3, Mirage Shinkiro, MoonstarWorld, Elita One, Time Manipulator, Veritrix, Apocrypha Blessing, Crossfire1205, wolves-fire77, PrancingTiger86, pl2363, flamingmarsh, Hot Rod's Girl, OrianPrime92, Hiezen, and Maraluch. You're always and forever my best inspiration. Thanks for all the comments and reviews.

And now here is chapter sixteen. I'm excited. Only four more chapters to go until the story is finished.

Ciao!

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn-about two weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Jazz leaned his head cautiously into the medbay, peeking into the chaos and worried out of his processor at the news that Wheeljack had just delivered to him.

Apparently Prowl had just up and _collapsed_ in the middle of talking to the engineer.

And Wheeljack had been extremely vague about what had caused the tactician to just shut down like that.

So bereft of news and unofficial sources of information, Jazz had decided that he absolutely needed to be in the medbay to find out what was wrong with his prowl.

His Prowl? That thought made Jazz pause as he turned it over in his head a few times, examining it from a few different angles.

Jazz held no illusions about the kind of reputation that he held with most of the Autobots. He liked mechs and liked being in relationships, but he had never before had the urge (More like an overwhelming need at this point) to claim any of those mechs as his.

He just hadn't had that kind of compulsion to mark any bot as his personally.

So it scared him just a bit that he did have this urge with Prowl. He had never wanted anything permanent before. It was new. It was also slightly thrilling.

Prowl.

Just thinking about the SIC made his limbs weak and his spark start to beat faster. It made him imagine things that he had never before wanted in his life.

Like a steady relationship with someone.

Tossing his thoughts into an unused data bank, Jazz refocused his attention and couldn't help but narrow his optics a bit at what he was seeing.

Jazz knew his emotional subroutines were considered some of the best that existed in the Autobot army because of his laidback nature (Especially considering that he was an Ops. operative) but the plain truth was that his subroutines contained an ugly side to them, darker emotions that showed up unexpectedly, and this was one of those times because looking into the medbay at all the orderly's attending to the SIC all he could feel was worry intermixed with a deep well of jealousy that they were touching his Prowl.

Jealousy that they got to be that close to him. Jealously that _they_ got to tend to him, caress him, and take care of his needs.

Logically Jazz knew that the mechs weren't doing anything but what they had been trained to do, but his CPU was being very selective about what it processed at the moment, and all it was seeing was mechs touch _**HIS PROWL!**_

Jazz let out a primal growl from his vocalizer and fully entered the room, actually causing innocent mechs to leap out of his way as he determinedly stomped over to the medical berth that Prowl was laid on, hooked up to wires, monitors and feeds and looking extremely vulnerable.

He had just made it to the berth and was about to reach out for the nearest medic (All of whom had taken one look at him and had exchanged slightly panicked looks) to demand they tell him exactly what in Primus' name was wrong with the tactician, and for goodness sakes would they get their ugly hands off of him!, when someone came up behind him and grabbed him solidly by the shoulder.

Utilizing Vorns worth of honed skills that had kept him alive thus far, Jazz reacted instinctively and spun around, crouched low and knocked his attacker's feet from under him, effectively sending the unknown mech crashing to the ground.

It was only as he got up out of his crouch and finally took in the absolute silence that had descended on the medbay that he took time to look down at the mech that he had inadvertently attacked.

Optimus Prime was sprawled on the floor, looking up at the saboteur with an unreadable look on his faceplate.

Jazz let out a very descriptive expletive.

-------------

The walk up to Optimus' office was uncomfortable to say the least.

Jazz kept opening his mouthplates, trying to come up with something, _anything _to say. To apologize for his actions, to explain himself to his commander.

That didn't mean that he had actually _come up_ with anything thus far, but he was trying his best to formulate an apology that didn't cast him in a negative light.

It also seemed that every mech stationed on the base had heard about his transgression towards the commander as it seemed like they took every excuse that they could to be out in the corridors between the medbay and Optimus' office.

Stepping into the office, Optimus gestured for Jazz to take the chair on the other side of his desk and sat himself in his seat, before looking Jazz in the faceplate.

"Optimus I…" Jazz began immediately, but broke off when Optimus held up a hand to stop him.

"Jazz." Optimus commenced, folding his hands in front f him on the desk. "First I want to apologize for startling you like that, it was thoughtless of me. I know better."

Jazz gaped at Optimus for a second, before closing his mouthplates and shaking his head.

"Optimus really…" Jazz tried again, but was stopped once more by Optimus.

"The second thing I want to tell you, ask you, is that if you could please be considerate enough to hold off on telling Prowl how you feel about him until the next Orn, then I'll split my winnings from the betting pool with you.

It took Jazz a few Clicks to process what had just come out of Optimus' vocalizer. When he did finally determine that no, he _hadn't_ actually heard his commander wrong, Jazz leapt out of his chair and looked at the Autobots commander incredulously.

"What?!" Jazz choked out, unable to believe the turn that the conversation had taken.

Optimus twiddled his fingers, choosing his next words with care.

"I know that you have been…pursuing Prowl." Optimus stated, not looking at his Third in Command.

"Pursuing?" Jazz questioned lightly, turning the word over on his glossa, running the implications of the word over in his CPU.

Optimus looked up into Jazz's face again and nodded.

"Yes. I have gotten reports from several sources that say that you have been very adamant about getting Prowl's attentions lately.

And Jazz sat back down into the chair and put his hands over his face place, letting a low chuckle out of his vocal processor.

Lifting his face back up, Jazz looked at Optimus. "Just how any credits are we talking about?"

Optimus grinned behind his facemask. "Enough for you to give Prowl a very nice time out in Iacon."

Jazz sat back and thought about all the different sorts of things that he could do with Prowl in Iacon and grinned back at his commander.

"Half the credits and one rule free party when I finally tell Prowl to how I feel." Jazz named his terms as he stood up and stretched the kinks out of his joints.

Optimus got out of his seat and walked around his desk while holding out his hand to the saboteur. Jazz clasped it in one of his own.

"Deal. Though if you would be so kind as to avoid harming anyone else in the process…" Optimus agreed, tones of pure amusement lacing his voice as Jazz solemnly nodded his consent as well.

-------------

**Bonus Scene 5**

Optimus looked on as Jazz exited his office and felt nothing but extreme amusement well up in him as he contemplated the thought of his Second and Third in Command being in an intimate relationship.

Surprisingly, the thought didn't get him as apprehensive as some of the other relationships that his mechs had chosen to entangle themselves with.

Opening his comm. Optimus contacted Red Alert, knowing that he would be overjoyed that Prowl was finally out of the security center.

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	17. Chapter 17

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AN: I'm so glad that everybody liked the scene with Optimus and Jazz. I was practically laughing just typing it, so I'm happy people reacted to it well. And on a related side note: Wow!! Over 200 reviews! That is incredible. Thank you so much to everybody who made this fic what is. For reading, and reviewing, inspiring me, giving me encouragement. All of you are incredible.

A very specific and very heartfelt thank you goes out to flamingmarsh, Hot Rod's Girl, pl2363, Mirage Shinkiro, DitzyMusicLover, wolves-fire77, Elita One, Ameri, cmdrtekk, OrianPrime92, Gimme-Chan, Deepseadolphin11, PrancingTiger86, TammyCat, Brimtayne, and Independent.C. for your lovely comments. They always amuse me and encourage me, So thanks! ^_^

Now the bad news is that this was half written on my last day in Ohio, a quarter written in an airport and the last quarter last night (I'm home now) when I was extremely jetlagged from the time zone changes so it might not make too much sense. The good news is that it is a pretty big chapter. Either way, enjoy!

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Prowl onlined his optics reluctantly, feeling a heaviness on them that he couldn't explain right off.

Shifting slightly over onto his side to relieve the pressure on his door wings (Though for the life of him he couldn't remember the last time that he had voluntarily lain on his back in recharge) he took stock of his surroundings.

Concentrating and focusing his optics Prowl was met with the medical bay's slightly scorched metallic ceiling.

Which means….Prowl continued the train of thought, and sure enough, when he looked to the side he was met with the sight of the rest of the med bay.

Running a quick systems check just to be sure that he was operating with normal parameters Prowl felt mild relief when the only discrepancy was that his internal chronometers were off five cycles.

Though that was puzzling as well. There were only a few things that could throw his chronometer off, and the most likely culprit would be a systems shutdown.

But why would they….

Prowl halted his thoughts and accessed his databanks, examining the last entries that had been logged.

Wheeljack…the Special Ops. armory and…

Prowl sat up quickly, though he regretted the action when he felt various wires pull at different parts of his body.

Jazz!

He had been talking about Jazz with Wheeljack and the engineer had said that…that…

Prowl felt his logic circuits heat up slightly and his audios vaguely registered an alarm going off in the distance, but he ignored it all to concentrate on finishing his examination of his last few bits of memory data.

Wheeljack. Special Ops. Talking to the engineer about Jazz and…

Again his logic circuits gave a painful surge but he ignored it, focused on staying online so he could get through his memory files.

….Talking to Wheeljack about Jazz, and Wheeljack had replied and said that….that Jazz liked him…

Prowl's spark sped up and his systems went into overdrive, setting off several more alarms in the medbay, though again Prowl ignored the noise in favor of his thoughts.

Jazz.

Prowl frowned, letting his thoughts wander down various avenues.

Was there… could there be a chance that Wheeljack was deceiving him in some way? But no, he had known the engineer for Vorns and he knew that Wheeljack wasn't given to lying to mechs about things. The engineer was as forthright as they came.

So if Wheeljack wasn't lying…then could he have heard the engineer wrong? Could his hopes and fantasies about Jazz have now translated to him getting faulty information? Into hearing things that weren't (Almost certainly couldn't) be true?

That was always a possibility, even if his systems check had told him that his audio receptors were functioning at a hundred percent.

So if he had heard wrong….but then what if he hadn't?

Prowl felt his systems speed up again. If he hadn't heard Wheeljack wrong….

Then…could it be that Jazz really did have feelings for him?

Prowl's spark fluttered and Orns of repressed emotions flooded his body.

If there was the chance that Jazz liked him…

An internal alarm went off in his head, informing him that his systems were now running at too hot to keep functioning but Prowl ignored it in favor of thinking about Jazz.

If Jazz liked him….

Prowl's thoughts were turning lethargic, and the tactician was forced to lie back down on the berth due to a sudden inability to keep himself upright.

If Jazz liked him…

All he could concentrate on was that thought. Nothing else in the universe was registering with him in that moment but that simple truth.

Jazz liked him….

Jazz liked him?

Jazz liked him!

And Prowl remembered no more after that.

-------------

"….Owl…"

"…Rowl…"

"Prowl!"

Registering the noise, Prowl's audio systems alerted him to the fact that someone was calling his name. Loudly and persistently.

Prowl turned the gain down on his audio receptors and unshuttered his optics, though he immediately regretted the action because of the bright light that was flooding down on him.

His caller must have seen him wince because the lights were dimmed enough so that he could see without having to squint.

Activating his optics again he looked to where the light controls were operated and sure enough, Ratchet was making his way back across the medbay to his berth.

"Sorry about that Prowl, we were doing some internal checks on your processor."

Ratchet leaned forward and grabbed by Prowl the upper arm and levered the tactician until he was in a sitting position.

"My internal processor?" Prowl inquired after he was sitting upright.

Ratchet brought out a medical scanner and ran it over Prowl, remembering a similar scene with the SIC not so long ago.

Focusing back on his scanner, Ratchet answered Prowl's question. "Your logic circuits overheated enough to melt some of the wires in your CPU. We had to go in and replace them before they degraded and short circuited something."

Prowl made a noncommittal noise and activated his own self diagnostics to make sure that the replacement wires had integrated with his other systems properly.

After his systems check gave him the all clear Prowl sat back and let Ratchet finish what he was doing, content for the moment to be silent.

Subspacing his scanner, Ratchet nodded at the Tactician. "It's a good thing that you have such a resilient CPU. As it is, you'll have coolant hooked up into your systems for at least the next four Cycles just so that we can be sure that there's no extra damage to your systems anywhere else in that overworked body of yours.

Prowl nodded his understanding, not trusting himself to speak, to voice any of the questions that he wanted to ask.

Ratchet nodded again and after checking that all the wires that he was hooked up to were secured he started to make his way back to his office.

"I'll call Optimus and Wheeljack down to see you; you've had them a bit worried with your crash yesterday."

Prowl didn't want to but he couldn't stop himself from asking. "Jazz…"

Ratchet turned to face him and the look on his face was almost pitying. "Jazz left a message with me for you earlier in the Cycle. He wishes you a fast recovery and a good Orn, but he won't be down to see you while you're in the medbay."

Prowl just stared back at Ratchet like he had been hit in the spark. "But I thought…Didn't Wheeljack say that…that…"

Prowl's internal temperatures skyrocketed again forcing the machines attached to his systems to pump more coolant into his systems to keep them from shutting down from the strain.

"But I thought that Jazz liked me!" Prowl finally managed to get out, hating that he sounded more like a sparkling and not at all like a ranking officer in the Prime's army.

Ratchet bowed his head and muttered under his vocals about stupid engineers before looking Prowl in the optics.

"Wheeljack shouldn't have told you that. It was thoughtless of him."

Prowl clenched his fingers and blocked out the voices that had sprang to life in is head at Ratchet's words.

"So…Wheeljack was lying to me?" Prowl whispered, sure that he could feel his spark physically breaking into pieces in his spark chamber.

"No!" Ratchet immediately intervened on his friend's behalf, causing Prowl to sit up straighter. "Wheeljack was telling the truth when he said that Jazz likes you. You just…Jazz needs to tell you this himself."

Prowl looked down at his clenched fists. "So then why hasn't he?" Prowl questioned aloud, causing Ratchet to huff in an amused way.

"Probably for the same reason that you haven't told him about the way _you_ feel." Ratchet answered the tactician's query.

Prowl looked at Ratchet curiously urging the CMO to continue.

"Don't you see?" Ratchet asked, before shaking his head at prowl's hopelessness. "He's afraid of what your response will be. He fears rejection."

Ratchet's words made Prowl pause. Jazz was afraid that he would reject him? But he liked the saboteur, couldn't imagine his life without the Third-in-Command in it!

There was no way that fearless confident Jazz could be afraid of his reaction to his feelings was there? Could it really be that simple? That Jazz was scared of the same things that he was, that they both were after the same thing?

Ratchet placed a hand on Prowl's shoulder, recalling the tactician's attention to the room.

"I'll call Wheeljack and Optimus and you can discuss this with them okay?" Ratchet told Prowl in an uncharacteristically mellow voice, before retreating to his office.

-------------

By the time that both Optimus and Wheeljack and managed to arrive in the medbay (It took seven point six Breems) prowl had thought up multiple questions to ask the two.

How did they know that he liked Jazz? How did they know that Jazz liked him? Why wasn't Jazz here in the medbay if he did like him? What should he do now? Should he tell Jazz how he feels or wait for the saboteur to tell him? Who else knew? Did the whole base know? (That thought made Prowl shudder slightly) Or just a few select bots? How long had Jazz liked him? What about Trailbreaker? What about the army? Would they still be able to keep their ranks? Would Optimus allow this relationship to continue? What about…

All these questions and more ran in a loop in his head, repeating themselves over and over until Prowl was sure that there were wires in his CPU that must have been accidently crossed despite both his and Ratchet's scans coming up clean.

In fact Prowl was so intent on trying to arrange his thoughts into some sort of comprehensible order that it took Wheeljack calling his name and waving a hand in front of his optics to get his attention to focus outside of his CPU again.

Prowl focused his optics and got a look at Wheeljack's obsidian fingers, slightly interested in the minute scars that crisscrossed the engineer's hands.

"Yes Wheeljack?" Prowl asked the engineer since he seemed so intent on getting his attention.

Wheeljack grinned at the tactician and rapped Prowl gently against his helm.

"You look very focused there Prowl. What is going on in that processor of yours?" Wheeljack teased his superior officer.

Prowl sent his mind searching through the categories that his processor had sorted his substantial list of questions into.

"Jazz." Prowl breathed out, for once not fighting the urge to keep all of his doubts, hopes, and fears inside his emotional sub-processors.

Optimus made a noise in his vocalizer, but chose not to say anything out loud; instead he just stood there on the side waiting for Prowl to give voice to his thoughts.

"What about Jazz?" Wheeljack asked confused, apparently not seeing the same things that Prowl was seeing when it came to the saboteur.

"He…I…well…" Prowl began, trying as hard as he could to get out his thoughts as rationally as possible.

"You said that Jazz had feelings for me right?" Prowl turned back to look at Wheeljack sharply after a moment of contemplation.

Wheeljack nodded slowly.

"How do you know?" Prowl questioned.

Wheeljack gave Prowl a questioning look. "Know what?"

Prowl stared at the engineer (A supposed genius) and felt an uncharacteristic urge to shake him.

"Know that he likes me! What about Trailbreaker? And why wouldn't he just tell me? Ratchet says that it's because Jazz is scared of rejection, but why would Jazz be scared? I love him! And why isn't Jazz here? I thought you said that he liked me?"

Optimus and Wheeljack exchanged weary looks over the top of Prowl's head, trying to figure out how to allay Prowl's concerns.

"Prowl…" Optimus said softly. "Let me start by saying that Jazz had been attempting to win your affections for a long while now. And there probably isn't a bot in the army that hasn't seen the affection that he holds for you, and you for him."

"You say you love him?" Wheeljack interjected.

Prowl took a moment to consider Wheeljack's question. True he had mostly been babbling when he had asked the question and he would be the first to admit he was having a hard time pinning down his feeling for Jazz. He knew he had some attachment to the saboteur, and he knew that they were strong emotions, but love? Could it be possible? Could he really feel that strongly for Jazz? Unbidden random images of Jazz sprang to life behind his optics.

Prowl let out another sigh. "Yes." Prowl let out softly. "I love him."

There was a moment of silence and then Wheeljack asked another question. "And have you told him that you love him?" Wheeljack asked, knowing full well that Prowl had done no such thing.

This time Prowl visibly frowned. "No! But he…Jazz hasn't either." Prowl trailed off softly his unspoken question apparent. Optimus frowned trying to find a response that would keep Prowl calm.

"You and Jazz have many things to discuss." Optimus said comfortingly trying to take control of the conversation again. "But not until the start of the next Orn I'm afraid."

Prowl tilted his head to the side. "Why? Doesn't he want to see me? Where is he?"

"He got an emergency call from some of his operatives in the early hours of the Joor and departed to take care of it. He sends his regards and well wishes, and said to tell you that he'll see you soon.

Prowl wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved that he wouldn't have to face up to what he had spent some much time already trying to avoid in one way or another. This delay would mean that he would have time to prepare for his next meeting with Jazz. And enough time to make himself doubt what he felt for the saboteur as well.

"Aww cheer up Prowl." Wheeljack said brightly, audio receptors blinking different colors. "All this does is give you time to make sure that have you have everything planned out for when Jazz finally returns, and we'll help you prepare for when he does." the engineered offered on both his and Optimus' behalfs.

"And make sure that we don't lose our bets in the process." Optimus muttered under his breath in Wheeljack's direction.

Wheeljack inclined his head slightly, letting Optimus know that he had heard him before turning his full attention back to Prowl and listing different ideas.

-------------

**Bonus Scene 6**

Jazz checked his chronometer and cursed. Setting the last charge in place Jazz ran as quickly as he dared back to the rendezvous point, hoping to Primus that the information that he had was correct and that he wouldn't encounter any Decepticons on the way back down the hallway.

Arriving safely, Jazz made sure his mechs were in position and then sent them the all clear signal before pressing the activating mechanism for the charges that he had set.

Jazz took in the gentle melody of the explosions that rocked the base and felt the heat as fires consumed the building and repeated the countdown in his processor.

Only seven Joors, twenty Breems and Two clicks until he could see Prowl again.

Hearing footsteps approaching his position, Jazz started back to the shuttle already knowing that this was going to be a very, very long Orn.

* * *


	18. Chapter 18

* * *

AN: Thank you for the tremendous response to the last chapter. I'm happy that it was well received.

To Yami-Yugi3, pl2363, flamingmarsh, Elita One, marleypup14, optimus prime 007, WolvesFire77, MoonstarWorld, PrancingTiger86, DitzyMusicLover, OrianPrime92, Mirage Shinkiro, Shade of midnight, Deepseadolphin11, buddhabread, TammyCat, Dragon260, redamiB6147, Crossfire1205, and Independent.C. Wow. Thank you for all the feedback. You're all terrific.

This chapter is…I don't know where this chapter came from actually. The hidden depths of my mind. Maybe. It just seems a little weird to me.

In any case I hope everyone enjoys it.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Jazz stepped onto the landing dock with a groan of semi-locked joints. He had just spent almost a full Joor on a small (Excruciatingly tiny) transport shuttle and was quite glad to be back at Autobot headquarters in Iacon.

He had found himself distracted enough by his thoughts about Prowl almost to the point of making fatal mistakes over the course of the time that he was checking in on some of his field operatives.

And now after having spent so much time in the field and just as much time on transports being shuttled to different bases on the planet, he was looking forward to being able to finally being back on one of the few bases that he had ever felt permanently attached to and relaxing a little.

But not too much. He had a list full of things that he needed to do now that he was back at headquarters.

First on that list was recharge.

Jazz frowned a little before sighing and rolling his shoulders a little to loosen the joints. No that was third on the list.

First on the list would be a visit to Ratchet for a full medical check-up since, by regulation, all bots returning from field operations were required to get medical clearance when returning to the base that they were stationed at (And while this wasn't a regulation that he followed to the letter, visiting Ratchet would give him an opportunity to put his processor to ease about the condition that he had left Prowl in).

Prowl.

Just thinking the tactician's name made his systems go into overdrive and his spark start to beat erratically.

Putting his hand up over his spark chamber Jazz heard one of his elbow joints pop faintly and he rolled his shoulders again, happy to note that the joint seemed to have realigned properly.

Ignoring the twinges from his limbs, Jazz resumed thinking about his tactician..

Prowl had been on Jazz's thoughts from the moment he had exited the base and his mind had run through different scenarios involving the tactician; ranging from Prowl being on death's doorstep, to how to get Prowl to attend the party that he had managed to wrangle Optimus into allowing, to how he would finally confess his feelings to Prowl.

Confess his feelings…

Would he even be able to do it? He had spent so much time just maneuvering around the SIC and avoiding the issues that to know that not only could he finally tell Prowl his feelings, but that he had Optimus' blessing to do so was scary, but also exciting in many ways.

But there were so many variables. The biggest being the feelings of Prowl himself.

If…no when he finally told Prowl how he felt what would the tactician do?

There was no question that he needed to own up to how he was feeling for the tactician. No question that whatever runaround the two had become engaged in needed to stop. But dare he even hope that Prowl would react positively to his feelings? Dare he hope that Prowl would reciprocate them?

The two of them had been friends for Vorns and members of the Autobot army even longer than that, but what he was going to do would alter everything between the two permanently. And maybe not for the better.

Jazz let out a low grunt at his thoughts.

All of this would ultimately depend on Prowl and his reaction. And all of his thoughts were irrelevant until he told prowl how he felt.

Jazz slowly made his way down the corridors towards the medical bay while trying to settle his thoughts.

He had never before wanted something to go as right as he wanted this confession to. He wanted the moment that he told Prowl that he liked him to be absolutely perfect. Though knowing the bots on this base like he did, that wasn't likely to happen. So he would settle for as close to perfect as possible.

And so…

Coming to the entrance to the medical corridor, Jazz blinked his optics and reordered his to-do list in his head.

Medical check-up with Ratchet. Find out how Prowl is. Pay a visit to the washracks. Get in some recharge. Plan his party. Confess his feelings to Prowl.

Hearing the doors open Jazz stepped into the medical wing slowly with his processor running at incredible speeds, trying to figure out how to accomplish all the tasks that he needed to do.

-------------

Luckily for him his trip to medical hadn't take up too much time from the point that he was admitted to the moment that he was seen and now he was sitting somewhat impatiently on one of the medical berths waiting for Ratchet to tell him that he was free to leave so that he could get his to-do list started.

At last Ratchet seemed satisfied and turned off his scanner

"All clear Jazz." The medic announced and subspaced his medical tool.

'Thanks Ratch." Jazz said gratefully as he slid off the berth and resumed trying to get rid of the tight feeling that had developed in his joints because of all the sitting that he had been forced to do in the last few Cycles.

"Stiff?" Ratchet asked with a professional curiosity.

Jazz nodded and sifted his stance slightly, his leg joint letting out a small cracking sound as he finally managed to disengage one of the struts.

"I've spent most the last Orn on shuttles and crouched down in Decepticon bases." Jazz answered with a tired yawn. "They weren't the most comfortable situations. Or the roomiest." Jazz replied ruefully.

Ratchet nodded and waved a hand towards the door. "Well you're free to leave and get in some recharge, though your power levels are down to sixty-five percent so you should probably get a ration of energon as well."

Jazz nodded and started for the corridor, but paused in the doorway.

"Hey Ratch?"

Ratchet looked up from his files.

"Yes Jazz?"

Jazz paused for a moment, wondering if he even wanted to ask his question, but decided that he needed to know, if only for his own peace of mind.

"How's…" Jazz's speech stumbled a bit. "How's Prowl?" He finally got out hesitantly.

Ratchet shot Jazz a curious look before letting air out of his vents.

"Prowl was discharged the Joor after he was brought here and except for a few aches in his processor he's absolutely fine."

Jazz let out an audible sigh of relief before waving his hand in thanks and exiting the room, all the while going over his to do list in his head once again.

Get energon. Hit washracks. Recharge. Find Prowl and make sure that he's okay with his own optics so that he can finally put his processor to rest. Confess feelings.

And not necessarily in that order.

-------------

Stepping into the upper levels of the base Jazz rolled his joints again, futilely trying to get the last few kinks out of his rigid limbs, almost convinced that he would never move freely again.

Hearing footsteps, Jazz lowered his arm with a creak and turned around to find out who was behind him.

Seeing who it was, Jazz crossed his arms and frowned slightly at their antics.

"And just what are you two up to?" He inquired as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe entered audio range.

Sideswipe jumped and removed his gaze from where they were very firmly glued to the floor while Sunstreaker looked away from where he was intently studying the walls and both blinked their optics at him simultaneously.

"Hey Jazz." Sideswipe said brightly as if they hadn't just crossed paths under semi-suspicious circumstances.

Jazz dropped his arms and shook his head at the two, tying to decide if he really wanted to spare time to deal with them after already having endured a Joors worth of sitting on a (Very very cramped) shuttle and a Cycle in the med bay.

Coming to the decision that he honestly couldn't bring himself to care about what they were up to he looked at them with a frown.

"Don't bother Sideswipe. And I don't even want to know what you're doing, just make sure it doesn't get me involved in any way."

"Knowing Red Alert, he's already tracking us with his security system." The red twin said in an unconcerned tone, "But we honestly aren't up to anything. Except…" Sideswipe trailed off and sidled up to the saboteur, throwing an arm around his shoulders.

"What's this we hear about you and Prowl?"

"Prowl?" Jazz looked at the red bots face, once again wondering where all the time that he had spent as the head of Special Ops. had gotten him if he couldn't even predict what conversation topics were going to come up with mechs that he was most familiar with.

First Optimus Prime and now sideswipe. It was acutely embarrassing that they had both managed to surprise him as much as they had.

"Yeah. And something about a party?" Sideswipe continued on while Sunstreaker unobtrusively sidled up to his other side and wrapped another arm around Jazz shoulders, effectively locking the Special Ops. officer in between them.

Jazz took a Click to contemplate what the twins could possibly be up to and where exactly they could have gotten their information.

Closing his optics Jazz shifted slightly, trying to loosen their hold. "I don't even want to know how you two found out about that."

"Ratchet told us." They intoned at the same time in the same unapologetic mischievous tone.

Jazz scowled at the two and tugged harder, still trying to free himself from their grip.

"Ratchet needs to learn not to blab." Jazz said, his lack of recharge, lack of energon and anxiety over wanting to see Prowl finally getting the best of him.

"Oh don't be like that. We want to help." Sideswipe said solidly.

"But first," Sunstreaker finally interjected into the conversation, removing his arm with an expression of disgust on his face "You need to visit the washracks. Primus when was the last time you cleaned yourself?"

Jazz shrugged (Setting pain off along his spinal relays) and before he could answer found himself being hauled bodily towards the nearest shower area.

"Just leave everything to us Jazz." Sideswipe continued on as he helped pull Jazz down the corridor "This party will be one you won't forget." The red bot promised.

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of." Jazz mumbled resignedly, but allowed himself to be dragged off by the two frontliners.

-------------

**Bonus Scene 7**

Stepping away from the washracks after seeing Jazz off Sideswipe was almost rubbing his hands in glee, his mind already going over everything that he would need to do to get the base ready for the type of party that he had in mind.

Grabbing his twin he led Sunstreaker towards the supply rooms, voicing aloud all the ideas that he had for the party.

"We'll need fireworks, decorations, music, and high grade. Lots and lots of high grade." The red bot informed his twin as the descended the corridors at a fast clip.

-------------

I hope this chapter came out okay. Anyway only two more chapters to go. Yay! Can you feel the excitement?

* * *


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

AN: First off I want to send big thank you to OrianPrime92, DitzyMusicLover, Elita One, flamingmarsh, Brimtayne, Independent.C, WolvesFire77, PrancingTiger86, Cloudy McSam, Gimme-Chan, marleypup14, MazokuTenshi, Beregond5, Asher119, Hot Rod's Girl, Randomstrike, and Deepseadolphin11 for all the feedback. I deeply appreciate it and everyone as well for taking the time to let me know what you all think. Thank you.

To everyone else who had read the story and added it to favorites or alerts: Thank you as well for all the support.

Now, honestly, I have to say that I have mixed feelings about posting this chapter. This story has evolved in ways that I never even imagined when I sat down and typed up the first chapter. Like many of you I hate to see it end, though at the same time it is a relief to know how close it is to being finished.

I hope you enjoy. This chapter has been a long time coming.

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

________________________________________________________________

Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

________________________________________________________________

Stepping carefully into the supply room that Sideswipe had said he would be in all Joor, Jazz looked around at the mess that riddled the area and had to marvel at the red warrior's resourcefulness.

If nothing else the party was sure to be one that wouldn't be forgotten in a while Jazz mused to himself as he looked into the spare supply room that the twins had appropriated to hold all the goods that they had 'borrowed' from the base supplies.

Fully entering the room and stepping around some crates labeled 'breakable' (And he really wasn't sure if he even wanted to know what the twins had in there that could be considered as such) he made his way further into the space, searching for Sideswipe amid the mess of objects.

Making one last visual sweep of the area and still not seeing the bot (It was interesting to note that it was the always the bigger of the mechs that seemed able to disappear completely in small spaces, though the how escaped even Wheeljack's understanding) Jazz called out the frontliners name curiously.

"Sideswipe?"

A bang and a curse issued from somewhere in the left corner and sure enough, as Jazz looked on the red bot seemed to appear as if by magic from behind a pile of boxes.

Seeing Jazz Sideswipe perked up considerably. "Jazz! You're just in time!"

"For?" Jazz asked while narrowing his optic ridges in confusion.

Straightening up completely Sideswipe enthusiastically leapt over a few of the piles and managed (Through a stunning set of acrobatic movements that even he wasn't sure that he would feel comfortable performing) to land nimbly beside Jazz and plant himself with one arm around the saboteur.

Then Sideswipe subspaced a data-pad and waved it in front of Jazz's face dramatically.

"Why to pick the theme of course!" The red bot announced in his best sing-song voice.

"Theme?" Jazz asked, torn between being alarmed and intrigued at the very long list that he managed to get a glimpse of before Sideswipe brought the data-pad back close to him and started scrolling through the list.

"Of course!" The red bot replied as if Jazz were completely ignorant.

"Now" And Sideswipe cleared his vocalizer and, adopting a Pseudo professional air, set himself down on one of the crates. "We have several themes to choose from and some of them come highly recommended."

"Recommended?" Jazz questioned, taken aback by the sheer amount of thought that Sideswipe was putting into planning this particular party (It wasn't that they never threw parties, but usually they were spontaneous and consisted of nothing but cubes of high-grade, whatever music they could procure and wild antics that annoyed Ratchet when it all got out of control and landed mechs in his med. bay).

"Sure." The frontliner replied distractedly. "For instance, we have Blaster who recommended having a concert theme…" Despite his astonishment Jazz had to admit that that peaked his interest.

"Ratchet said we should have something along the order of a straight-up bar theme…" Sideswipe said continuing down the list.

"He would." Jazz mumbled under his vocalizer which caused Sideswipe to look up for a moment with an amused expression on his face before once again concentrating on the pad in his hand.

Coming to another of the Autobots recommendations Sideswipe made an amused noise and a mischievous look entered his optics.

"Oh you'll love this one Jazz." Sideswipe said happily from his perch. "The mini-bots all voted unanimously for something involving the femmes. Though I doubt Elita will go for that." The red twin mumbled.

Jazz blinked his optics and almost laughed out loud at the image that entered hi processor at the thought.

"So?" Sideswipe looked up expectantly recalling Jazz's attention to the room. "Which one do you want to do?" and he held out the data-pad so Jazz could look at it for himself.

Sighing through his intakes Jazz snatched the pad out of Sideswipe's hand and started thumbing through the contents himself.

It was all pretty ordinary (And slightly amusing) until he got to the second page and something caught his optic.

He read through it again before looking up incredulously at Sideswipe.

"Someone wants to lock me and Prowl in a closet?!!" He asked, aghast at the thought.

Sideswipe only shrugged and gave the saboteur an innocent look.

-------------

Aside from picking a theme Jazz was also required to pick out what variations of high-grade he wanted (And Primus he had no idea that there were so many variations), the music that he liked (Since he had finally! reached a compromised with the twins and the three of them has settled for a combined mix of a bar and concert theme as the simplest and most effective way to go), and who he wanted to attend (Everybody on the base eventually ended up being invited-though he didn't suppose that there was any way that they could have been kept out of it all anyway).

Really about the only thing that Jazz _didn't_ end up compromising about on in the end was the issue of the fireworks. He had (Very firmly and with a lot of head shaking) put his foot down and drawn the line when Sideswipe had described what he and Sunstreaker wanted to do with them when they had been uncovered beneath all of the party decorations, music tapes and high-grade ingredients.

In the end it took all of Jazz's will and patience, the intervention of Prime _and_ Red Alert (Who was going off in fits because of the twins having free reign to do whatever their sparks desired without any rules to stop them with) and a near miracle from Primus to get the party set up even vaguely to his liking but he had to admit while looking around the crowded room after two Joors of planning and preparation that Sunstreaker and Sideswipe (Who he was now thoroughly convinced could be either the morale or supply officer if he ever lost his enthusiasm for killing Decepticons) had the ability to arrange a good party when given the right amount of leeway and supplies.

And now the party was in full swing and Jazz was glad that everybody looked like they were having a good time.

Everybody except…

Jazz's optics alighted on the very still and contemplating silent form of Prowl, who had stuffed himself into a corner table and was apparently trying his best to stay out of the way of all the over-energized and rowdy mechs that had crowded into the rec. room, out into the hall, and into just about every corner and niche that they could find to stuff themselves in.

Looking away from Prowl to where Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were eagerly handing out their specially brewed energon to any mech with a free hand, Jazz couldn't help but wince. It had taken a full committee of mechs most of three Cycles to convince the SIC to attend the party and now he was just sitting there, looking uncomfortable.

Well he would fix that but first….

Looking around one last time Jazz caught a glimpse of Red Alert standing with his bondmate, Blaster, Ratchet, Wheeljack and Perceptor who appeared to be doing their best to keep Red Alert as calm as possible while still trying to have a good time themselves.

Moving his gaze again he spotted Optimus, Ironhide and the rest of the command staff standing around and they seemed to be enjoying the downtime that the party was offering as well too.

And even the mini-bots were managing to behave themselves while still enjoying the party as well.

In fact if he was seeing things correctly Prowl was the only bot present who _didn't_ seem to be enjoying himself in some way, shape or form.

And Jazz had already decided that they couldn't have that.

So in that spirit Jazz grabbed a full cube of high-grade from the bar and turned around, intent on getting Prowl to agree to go to a more secluded spot so that the two of them could talk.

It seemed that Prowl had other ideas however because when Jazz looked back at the table that the tactician had previously been occupying, he had vanished.

Swiveling his head around anxiously, Jazz couldn't see any trace of black and white that might indicate Prowl was anywhere in the vicinity and after looking around like an idiot for Breem, Jazz had to concede the fact that Prowl wasn't in the room and so he set down his cube and walked swiftly to the exit.

-------------

Once away from all the noise and chaos that was taking place in the rec. room it wasn't hard to spot the SIC.

In fact Prowl was just standingin the middle of the hallway, looking as if he was waitingfor Jazz to find him.

Jazz stared at the scene in confusion for a Click trying to figure out what exactly the tactician thought he was up to and had actually turned on his vocalizer to ask Prowl just that when the tactician's doorwings straightened up on his back and he gave Jazz an uncharacteristic look.

This further confused Jazz and he took a step forward and as he did Prowl suddenly took a step back and took off at full speed down the hallway.

Jazz stared dumbfounded at the spot that the tactician had previously been occupying pondering the situation (Why did he take off like that?!) before taking off after him, determined that Prowl wasn't going to get away from him this time.

-------------

"Make way! Sorry! Coming through!" Jazz yelled out as he haphazardly dashed between startled mechs and weaved through throngs of bots who just didn't seem to understand that he was on an important errand and would they _please _stop blocking his path after letting Prowl go by when he was in the middle of chasing him!

The mechs that he had bowled into yelped and jumped hastily out of the way.

"Hey Jazz!" Huffer cried out indignantly as he rounded yet another corner and clipped the mini-bot, causing him to spill his high-grade down his front.

"Sorry!" Jazz tossed over his shoulder, but didn't decrease his speed, afraid that Prowl would manage to slip out of sight if he did so.

Ultimately the chase that Prowl had instigated took the two of them through the lower levels of the base and up into the hallway where most of the offices were kept.

And it was as they were approaching the front end of the base that Jazz finally managed to figure out exactly what Prowl's destination had to be.

His office. Prowl was headed straight to his office.

For a moment the thought that all of this was working out too perfectly (Because what were the odds that Prowl would not only take off after seeing him, but that he would end up leading both of them to one of the few private spots left in the base-Prowl wasn't a tactician for nothing and _surely_ he had to know that Jazz was following him) crossed his processor and his Ops. training started screaming at him that this was more than likely a set-up of some sort but he pushed those thoughts aside and continued on, though by this time he was breathing erratically and his body was overheating from the constant physical exertion that he had undertaken in the last ten Breems.

But he finally managed to get to Prowl's office door and slammed his palm impatiently against the door controls and, surprisingly enough the door slid right open, which just set off another red flag in his head. If Prowl really was trying to get away from him wouldn't he have locked the door behind him?

Perplexed, confused, cautious and badly overheated Jazz stepped into the office slowly only to stop out of pure shock.

There was Prowl all right, sitting behind his desk and leaning back in his chair. On the desk were two warm cubes of energon though you could barely tell that they were there because the lighting had been turned down to the bare minimum and soft music (A classical piece from the height of the Golden Age) was playing in the background.

Somewhere in his processor he filed away the thought that once again his instincts had been right about a situation. This was (Had to be) a set up after all.

Jazz's optics widened and he looked over at Prowl.

"What?" He asked dazedly, pure unadulterated astonishment lacing his voice.

The tactician made a noise in the back of his vocalizer and looked up to stare straight into Jazz's blue optics.

The look was intense and caused Jazz's spark to start racing.

Pushing his chair back Prowl stood up slowly and walked around the desk until he was face to face with Jazz.

Jazz's breath hitched in his intakes and his body, already warm from all the running, heated up even more.

The tactician let Jazz squirm uncomfortably for a moment before half-shuttering his optics and closing the distance between the two, setting his hands lightly up against Jazz.

Being this close him Jazz was sure that Prowl could hear his spark beating in its case. Jazz looked away from Prowl's intense gaze in a last-ditch attempt to keep some of his wits about him.

"Prowl…what…" He began but was cut off when Prowl leaned in and captured his mouth hungrily.

It took a Click to register what was happening and when it did Jazz jumped away from Prowl's (Sweet, wonderful) kiss and gaped at the tactician as if he had just had another head welded to his shoulders.

"Jazz?" Prowl questioned, hurt and curiosity lacing his voice.

Ignoring the pain that Prowl's tone caused him Jazz studied the tactician as much as the dim illumination would allow.

Prowl was standing there (For once not with a prim and perfect posture) observing him with half shuttered optics, the look on his face a mixture of curiosity and anguish.

And while he was looking at Prowl Jazz's mind couldn't help wander back over the last twelve Orns. He thought about Prowl and the behavior that had instigated this whole series of events. He thought about all the doubts that he had had surface over the actions that he had taken. He thought about all the obstacles that he had had to overcome to get to this point.

He thought about what Prowl had just done, with his sweet lips moving against his and his glossa running deliciously over his teeth plating and came to the decision that enough was quite enough.

Tossing all thoughts, doubts, and protocols out of his mind Jazz decided that he should heed his better nature for once and reacted purely on instinct.

Moving forward again he forced Prowl to back up as well until the tactician was trapped between him and the desk.

And still acting on instinct Jazz closed the distance between them and pulled Prowl into a tight embrace.

With his arms wrapped around the tactician he could hear every breath of air that went into Prowl's intakes, could feel the heat that Prowl's systems generated and could see, clearly see, the way that Prowl was reacting to his touch.

He could have stayed like this forever and been content he decided.

"Jazz?" Prowl breathed softly while absently resting his weight against him.

Jazz drew in a ragged breath, trying to calm his systems.

"Jazz?" Prowl questioned again, this time with a more concerned lilt to his voice.

"Prowl…"

Jazz tightened his grip on the tactician and drew in another breath.

"Prowl I …"

And Jazz found himself unable to continue because the sheer enormity of the situation was finally setting in. He was about to cross a line that couldn't be redrawn. And if this went badly….

If he did this…

And the doubts that he had thought he had silenced sprang to life once again in his processor for a Click before he forcibly shut them out again.

Tightening his grip on Prowl further he powered down his optics and sent out a silent prayer to Primus, hoping that would help to strengthen his resolve.

He could do this! He **could**!

Jazz took in one last huge breath of air, hugged Prowl to him and turned on his vocalizer.

With his spark beating loudly and his energon rushing to various places he gathered up what was left of his courage, tossed caution to the wind and uttered words that he had been longing to say to Prowl for Orns.

"Prowl, I like you." He whispered softly into the tactician's audio receptors.

There. He had said it.

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And there you have it folks. Nineteen chapters down, one to go.

I hope this lived up to everyone's expectations, though I acknowledge that it probably wasn't what most people were imagining throughout the story. In any case I'll see everyone back here for the final chapter. KG.

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	20. Chapter 20

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AN: Hello all. Been awhile huh. *Blushes sheepishly* I cannot express how much I want to apologize for how long it has taken to get this chapter out. I know that you have all been waiting for this chapter. My deepest apologizes. I never meant to take so long to get this posted but, well, real life sucks.

Anyway I do have news, both good and bad. First off, yes I will be writing a sequel to this story. I don't know how long it will be, but there a few things that I feel I need to wrap-up so yes there will for sure be a sequel. The bad news is that it probably won't be posted before the end of the year thanks to all the things that I have going on at the moment. So the only thing i can advise is to keep an eye out at the beginning of next year.

As for this chapter I will say that I haven't been sitting idle for the last two months. I must have rewritten this chapter at least ten times. It never quite got exactly to what I wanted it to be. I stand by it, but I guess I just feel that it could be better. You'll have to let me know what you think.

My very since and heartfelt thanks goes out to Iniku Dakishi, PrancingTiger86, flamingmarsh, Hot Rod's Girl, Randomstrike, marleypup14, FoxLuvr, Elita One, Independent.C. (for the multiple reviews urging me to get a move on-Thanks), Tiamat1972, Deepseadolphin11, Time Manipulator, Beregond5, DitzyMusicLover, Brimtayne, TammyCat, MoonstarWorld, OrianPrime92, WolvesFire77, Hiezen Uchiha, Mirage Shinkiro, JackalChan, Thalanee, astrakage, Refracted Imagination and anyone and everyone else out there who has taken the time to read the story or add it to favorites, or add it and me to alerts. You all are the best readers anybody could hope for. You have been an inspiration to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you all for sticking around. And again I have to apologize, this time for not getting around to answering reviews. I always mean to and yet I never seem to be able to get around to it. I ask your forgiveness (I seem to be doing that a lot huh).

Well I know you all didn't stick around this long just to hear me ramble so –drumroll please- here it is: Chapter Twenty!

Enjoy

**Making Sense of the Illogical **

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Click- Second

Breem - 8.3 Earth minutes

Cycle-One Earth Hour

Joor – One Earth Day

Orn - About Two Earth Weeks

Vorn - About 83 Earth years

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"_Prowl, I like you."_

Prowl sighed at the words and leaned in as much as he could into the warmth that Jazz's body offered.

After Orns and Orns of run around, mixed emotions, constant doubts and fears and the voices in his head making him question his own sanity, he had finally (Finally!) heard the words that he had been desperately hoping and longing to hear from Jazz.

After all, it was one thing to have mechs say that Jazz liked him but it was another thing entirely to hear the words come out of Jazz's vocalizer itself.

Letting the soft music that was permeating the room enter his audios, he shuttered his optics and let his processor wander back over various files, trying to pinpoint exactly how they had both come to this entrancing moment.

It had been twelve Orns (Four Joors, two Cycles, a Breem and forty-six point two Clicks) worth of spark-ache, frustration, hope and pent up longing as the two of them seemingly maneuvered around each other over, and over again.

Quickly skipping through his memory files, Prowl came upon one of the first in a folder that made him think back to that Joor so many Orns ago when he had first started actively questioning his increasing attraction to the mech who was currently wrapped tightly around him.

_Why, oh why did he like Jazz?_

His processor went back to that first Joor and the traits that he had tried to assess in Jazz as he had walked down the corridors on his way to the mess room.

The fact that Jazz was kind and friendly and had a wonderful personality had been the first of the qualities that he had tried to appraise. Prowl could recall plenty of times over their Vorns of friendship where Jazz had helped him and other mechs and that hadn't diminished over the last twelve Orns.

And Prowl still held no doubts (And still nursed his small desire to emulate) Jazz's terrific attitude on life. He had seen plenty of examples of how Jazz's attitude had helped him scrape by virtually unscathed (In chassis and processor) over the Vorns.

And after having felt what he felt for Jazz every time he had seen him over the last Orns; with his gorgeous body, his beautiful paintjob and his lithe, graceful movements…

Mentally shaking his head Prowl let out another low sigh at his thoughts. There was no way that he could deny that he was very, very attracted to Jazz.

And there was also no doubt in Prowl's processor that Jazz was one of the most singularly intelligent mechs that he had ever had the (Mis)fortune to meet, especially after the sheer planning and processing power that Jazz seemed to have put into his movements. Over the last couple Orns he had had to push his CPU to the limit to stay ahead of the saboteur in this unintentional chase that they had fallen into.

So why did he like him? What besides Jazz's personality, his attitude, his looks and his smarts was Prowl attracted too?

Yes Jazz had a terrific personality, but if that was all that Jazz had to offer to him Prowl might be better off focusing his affections on someone like Hound.

And it was true that he might harbor some jealousy over Jazz's attitude, but lately that had dimmed in comparison to his growing attraction and absolute irreplaceable need to just be nearJazz (Despite all of his actions and all of the things that had occurred lately).

After all this time even he could tell that he was supremely attracted to Jazz and after holding it all pent up inside he really felt like he was about to go **mad** with just the sheer amount of _need_ that he had to restrain after seeing Jazz in any way.

And smart. He could not (And never would) deny the fact that Jazz was smart. If the last twelve Orns had shown him anything it was that Jazz was not a mech to take lightly when it came to determination, planning and intelligence. He had always known that the saboteur was smart, but all of the recent events had thrilled him and got him thinking in ways that he had never considered before, and that just made Jazz all the more attractive in his processor.

Closing the files and shutting down his train of thought, Prowl filed everything away and brought himself back into the present situation.

If there was one thing that the last twelve Joors had taught him (At least according to Elita, Optimus and Wheeljack) it was the value of acting on his feelings.

Ultimately he didn't need to know why he liked Jazz just as long as he was sure that did.

And he was sure. So sure in fact, that when he was planning how this night would go with his two comrades over the last few Joors he had decided (After getting over his initial misgivings and last lingering doubts and fears) that he would follow at least one piece of good advice given to him (Not surprisingly) by the femme Commander and just kiss Jazz senseless and see where it got him.

And like he had desperately hoped it had led to Jazz (After initially shocking the saboteur) giving voice to his feelings for him at last.

It was a relief to finally know how the saboteur felt for him (Not that he had doubted Jazz felt _something_ for him after hearing it from multiple times from multiple mechs, but it had eased him to hear it from Jazz himself).

Quickly, all the significant events and feelings from the last twelve Orns started to play out in his processor like a video file. Jazz's return from his mission, the terrifying battle with the Decepticons, his shock at catching Jazz and Trailbreaker kissing, all the moments where he had been forced to change plans, rearrange duty rosters and hack into the security system (The latter two of which he would never admit to doing) so that he could evade Jazz as he tried to figure out how he felt and about how he should deal with it.

Talking to Elita, talking to Wheeljack, falling offline again and waking up the med-bay. His Orns worth of planning with Optimus and Wheeljack, and now tonight where he was (Finally) wrapped in Jazz's solid embrace (His processor silent as the voices seemed to have dispersed completely with Jazz's admission) leaving him wholly content in the moment.

Though somewhere in his processor the irony of the situation was starting to leak in as well. Who would have thought that he would shut-down at the mere mention of Jazz in some circumstances, but now in a situation when his systems normally would have been going through stasis lock, he was absolutely fine?

This state of affairs was completely illogical, and to his complete surprise it suited him perfectly. It was as if, with Jazz's admission of his feelings, his life had been brought back into balance.

Shifting inside the hug Prowl readjusted himself so that he could look up at Jazz who was peering down at him anxiously, waiting for his response.

Examining Jazz's face Prowl couldn't help but call up more memories of the last Orns. Could it be true that he had ever been as anxious as Jazz appeared to be now?

Was there any chance that he had ever been as nervous or fearful as the saboteur appeared to be about how Jazz would react when he became aware of his feelings?

Hoping to allay Jazz's apparent fear and anxiety Prowl smiled at the saboteur and squeezed Jazz around the middle reassuringly before bringing his hands up, leaning in, and cupping his hands around Jazz's faceplate.

"I know you do." He breathed lightly in response to Jazz's admittance, before rapidly dragging Jazz's face to his and kissing him once more.

He had clearly startled Jazz with his actions and words and like the last kiss that they had shared it took Jazz a Click to respond to his actions but when he finally did, instead of leaping away he leaned into the kiss, deepening it carefully.

Prowl took in the sensations of the kiss-the tingly feeling as energon heated up in his fuel lines, the pulsing frenetic energy of his spark, the wonderful friction as their lip components moved against each other, the delicate taste of the saboteur-and immediately decided that this was ten times better than anything that he had ever imagined in his head.

"Prowl…" Jazz murmured after quietly after they had both broken off the kiss due to multiple warnings on their HUD about a lack of oxygen in their intakes.

"Yes?" He answered back softly, not wanting to alter the moment.

Jazz absently ran his hands down the tactician's seams, stopping here and there to pay attention to particular spots. Prowl shivered at the sensations as Jazz took time to formulate his question.

"You knew that I liked you?" Jazz finally asked hesitantly with a questioning lilt in his musical voice.

The question gave Prowl a moment to pause and contemplate the fact that he and Jazz had really seen and interacted with each other only infrequently over the last twelve Orns and that, as such, they had both had very different experiences over that period.

Thinking about it almost caused Prowl to laugh out loud over the absurdity that the situation presented.

"Jazz." Prowl said while trying to hide the amusement that he felt. "At some point we really will need to sit down and talk."

"But not now" He muttered immediately after that and pulled a pleasing noise from Jazz as he leaned in once more and resumed kissing him passionately.

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**Bonus Scene 8**

"How long have they been in there?" Sideswipe asked as he stood with the mechs gathered in the rec. room and looked at the rigged view screen that showed the closed entrance to Prowl's office.

"Twenty Breems and counting." Wheeljack said, his audio fins glowing brightly and signaling his happy amusement.

"So who won?" Cliffjumper asked aloud, causing the rest of the crowd to start echoing the sentiment.

"Wheeljack and Optimus." Smokescreen said in a surprised voice from the corner where he was checking the data-pad that held the betting pool's results.

Optimus chuckled quietly and Wheeljack started laughing outright as the Autobots turned in their directions to gap at them.

"How much did they win?" Sideswipe said turning back to Smokescreen with curiosity.

Smokescreen subspaced his data-pad and shook his head.

"You don't want to know." He muttered while calculating his own losses. At ten-to-one odds he was going to be credit-less for awhile.

Apparently others were in the same position because he could already see some mechs in the room digging in their subspace, trying to round up things that they could trade for credits.

Meanwhile, the two winners of the pool had congregated together and were whispering conspiratorially while looking up at the screen where Prowl's closed office door stared back at them.

**-ARK THREE: END-**

**FIN**

And that's all she wrote folks. I hope this met everyone's expectations. I really wanted to wrap up the story as much as possible. Again thank you to everyone for all the inspiration and just for reading the story. It's a little bittersweet to see it finally end, but at the same time it's nice to know that I completed it. And it won't (Hopefully) be too long before the sequel is out so I'll see everyone in a couple of months. Until then I hope everyone has a good rest of the year (All two and a half months of it). Keep safe everyone. Ciao, KG.

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